


Once Upon a Dream

by DJoftheCoven



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Dream Eater Riku (Kingdom Hearts), Fluff and Angst, It will become angsty, Knight of darkness!Riku, Multi, Mutual Pining, Prince of light!Sora, Protective Riku (Kingdom Hearts), Riku's depressed! I'm a horrible person for doing this to him lmao, Romance, Tons of childhood fluff in the early chapters, With a lot of creative liberties on what that implies, be warned, darnit I accidentally made Sora kinda artsy, did I mention dragons? Yeah dude this story has a lot of fucking dragons, does over 50000 words of burn count as slow? Idk but take that as you will, so much pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 121,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26274727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJoftheCoven/pseuds/DJoftheCoven
Summary: “Maleficent wanted something to manipulate; something strong of mind but weak of heart. I existed only to serve that purpose. She tried to torture me into being a reflection of her, wielding my own soul against me in her own desperation to make me comply,” He faltered. “I was told I had to hurt him. But I… I couldn’t. I don’t think I’m capable of hurting Sora.”"It was for that reason that I was cursed with these wings. They're supposed to be a constant reminder of my disobedience."Riku was created to kill him, so what was going to happen now that he'd fallen in love instead?
Relationships: Aqua & Riku (Kingdom Hearts), Aqua & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), Implied VanVen - Relationship, Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Vanitas & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 114
Kudos: 167





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to preface this by saying welcome!
> 
> This work is a labor of my love and intensive gay yearning. It'll follow Sora and Riku at various points throughout their lives, from childhood up until the day of prophecy. 
> 
> Getting through my shitty writing skills is probably going to be somewhat of a chore for you! I'll love and cherish you forever if you read more than the first sentence. 
> 
> Bonne chance !

Once upon a time, there was a peaceful and prosperous kingdom of green rolling hills, sprawling expanses of white sand, and sparkling aquamarine water as far as the eye could see. It was known as the Kingdom of Destiny, or the more common name of the Destiny Islands.

The Islands had a reputation for being particularly beautiful. They had mild weather, the fishing was spectacular at their ports, and there had been little conflict with neighboring nations since the kings had declared a treaty with them in years prior. Almost everyone was happy with the new era of light and love that had come to befall the islands after so long without a proper leader. Newfound stability had finally been achieved out of the darkness of war and poverty.

But as the word “almost” suggests, there was at least one person who was not happy with the way that things had been going. Namely, someone who thrived on the darkness. 

The dark sorceress, Maleficent, was quite unhappy with this new peace and grew to hate it more and more every night.

Every evening at the stroke of twelve, she would descend into her scrying room to stir a large cauldron of oil, peering inside to see the images she had grown to detest so thoroughly. She saw people smiling, families playing together, couples embracing, and children splashing in the waves with joy practically radiating off of their tiny, loathsome faces. Maleficent cringed at their actions as she continued the hate-induced ritual well into the dawn.

Something had to be done, she had decided, about the filthy _, disgusting_ thing that they called love. It had to be eradicated. Otherwise, Maleficent would never again get the destruction and despair that she needed to keep her powers active. 

She stirred her cauldron more forcefully with every passing evening, trying to see farther and farther into the future until she breached the new year. Months flew by with little change. Nothing that she could use to disrupt this balance, surely.

Next night, faster. The wheels of time grated and spun in the pool of oil until they sparked and could move no further. Maleficent howled with rage, slamming her staff into the iron with a crack, though she knew that she could do nothing until the cogs cooled by tomorrow. And then they cooled, and she was back, stirring at the very next opportunity.

So much joy she saw, utterly revolting though it all was. What she needed was something to ruin it.

After the eighth night of stirring, toiling over her scrying pot like a mere servant, Maleficent finally found a crumb of possibility. Just a measly, scrappy crumb, but a crumb nonetheless. The purest happiness… In only a year and a day from now, she foresaw the birth of the new prince.

Bubbles popped softly in her cauldron around the now abused and beaten cogs. Above them, on a shifting image in the oil, the royal baby, who was wrapped in the imperial cloths that were dripping with jewels pertaining to his status.

She threw her staff down to the floor in relief, oil soaking into the stones in the darkness of dungeon. Only the sickly green light pouring from the cauldron illuminated Maleficent’s ghastly face as she began to formulate a plan.

“A baby.” She growled into the shifting darkness around her. With purpose, Maleficent straightened to her full height, lifting her arms up to the ceiling as if demanding to the gods whatever it was that she desired. “That can be arranged.”

From beneath her cloak, she produced a silver knife that glinted with the dull light from the oil, then quickly and without warning stabbed it deep into her forearm.

Blood gushed from her wound when she drew the knife out, flowing into the cauldron freely as it began to hiss and steam.

The green light changed into a deep red. The red of creation, the water of new life. “This _prince,”_ She spat out like a curse. “Will be doomed to fall helplessly in love with a monster. And when he does, when his heart is ripe for the taking, my beast will kill him. Think of how much darkness it would create!” Maleficent screeched.

The sorceress turned to a table of ingredients behind her, tossing in a pinch of brown powder, roses of the deepest red, and a splash of wine to the oil that was reaching a putrid magenta color. It was still too sweet, though, so the spell was not finished.

“This beast will have eyes as cold as ice and hair like snow, skin gaunt and pale like it has never seen the sun.” With those words, she added several selenite crystals, a chunk of ice, and a smooth seashell of indeterminate origin. “And it will be dangerous _._ A venomous bite, claws, and spiked wings to tear that little prince apart with.” A dragon tooth. Thorns. Seven drops of arsenic.

“My perfect weapon.” She laughed, reaching her palm out for the staff to come flying back into its grip. Jamming the staff into the pot, she stirred, and the cogs of time turned.

The room was then filled with red smoke. It poured into every single orifice, seething and sparking as the energy was raised higher and higher to an almost intolerable level. How hot it was could only be known by the volcanoes, for they awakened the day that the changeling child was brought into the world.

Power surged through the land in an indescribable shudder. Heat built, magma churned, and the great Destiny Kingdom volcano erupted and covered the sky in clouds of smoke.

Maleficent walked that evening through a rain of ash and horrible screams to the palace, carrying a bundle in her arms that was unnaturally silent.

The walkways were coated with soot. It muffled her steps on her way through each village, though the residents knew not of her presence regardless, busy holding each other with tear streaked faces as they waited for the lava to claim their homes from the fishing boats that they took refuge on.

Her child, not crying or screaming as any healthy one should, was left silently at the front gate of the castle with only one quiet knock against the wood with her staff to alert the castlefolk of its presence. Of course, no one would find the changeling for quite some time.

Mages from all around the kingdom worked together to undo the damages from the eruption, casting and healing the damage as the baby stayed unattended. It was slow going. Only when the first rays of the sun came creeping over the horizon would anyone think of opening the gates, since the palace guards were busy carrying out orders from a frantic king. The child was left to its own not even day-old devices until dawn.

Upon the seemingly human child being discovered come sunrise, the guards rushed it inside for the servants to give it food and proper shelter. Nothing was known about how the baby came to be or why it was left there that night. Even less was known about the baby’s fangs, since at this point, the child didn’t even have teeth.

But the plan had been set in motion.

Maleficent was content to fade into the shadows to wait. The only thing that she had left the changeling with was also the one thing that palace staff had been able to discern about the mysterious baby: Pinned to the child’s blanket was a small slip of paper with elegant cursive script that read _Riku._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note about Riku's species: I based the description of Changeling off of a collection of old fairytales I used to have as a kid. It might not be accurate to a google search. In this work, it means that he is half-fae and half-dragon. 
> 
> Strap down for a ride, my friends. I'm horrible at writing and that is everyone's problem but mine.


	2. A Birth, a Curse, and a Rescue

The day that the new prince was born was a day of grand celebration all throughout the Destiny Islands.

People sang and drank on their way to the castle, ready to congratulate the kings on their newly born heir. It had been a very long time since the gates had last been opened to the general public, but they were left open on only this day as the citizens came from all over the kingdom in succession to view the baby in his parents’ arms.

Not two, but four royals held their son for the people to see.

First was the stoic and wise King Strife. His spiky blond hair and long flowing cape were a sight to behold, even in such a moment of tenderness as the birth of his first son. Despite himself and his reputation, he cooed at the baby along with everyone else, however quietly that may have been.

The second was a woman with long black hair and an intimidatingly muscled physique. She looked very worn from what must have been a long labor, though her eyes were proud as she held the child close to her chest. This was Lady Lockhart.

To the left of Lady Lockhart was a kind looking woman with her hair in a sensible pleated braid. Her delicate hand rested on the shoulder of the new mother in solidarity for her exhaustion. She was also a Lockhart, but to avoid confusion, was known as Lady Gainsborough. The look on her face was soft as she viewed her wife with the new crown prince.

Lastly was a tall man with unruly brown hair and a standoffish look to his posture. King Leon didn’t speak much. He was happy for his kingdom, and even more so for his son in the arms of his surrogate mother.

His husband shot him a very emotional look that managed to melt him back into the moment after his brief brooding silence.

King Strife cleared his throat, stepping forward to address their audience. “Today, we welcome this child into the world as the next in line for the throne of the Destiny Islands. But more importantly… we welcome my firstborn son. I give my deepest thanks to Lady Lockhart for carrying him as she did for so many months, and to Lady Gainsborough for supporting her throughout the process.” He gestured to the women next to him.

“Thanks to them, the prince is as healthy as I could ever ask for. My husband and I are excited to introduce him to you all today as the newest addition to our steadily growing family.”

King Leon gently took the child from Lady Lockhart to join his spouse looking over the crowd. He glanced down momentarily, then had to look away when he found tears beginning to gather in his eyes. No matter how happy he was, King Leon would _not_ cry in front of thousands of people during an important speech. With a hitch in his voice, King Leon presented the baby in his arms to the crowd, hoping desperately that he wouldn’t drop him.

“I formally introduce everyone here to my and Cloud’s new son, and your new prince, Sora Leonheart Strife.”

The audience broke into cheers at the words of their kings, and for the time, everything was merry as the brand-new fathers eagerly began discussing what they were going to have for dinner that night amongst the joyous chaos.

Parties and celebrations rang on throughout the rest of the evening, spanning every location from the tiniest inn to the palace itself. Prince Sora, who was only a few hours old, cared very little for the festivities, and invested most of his time in sleeping as he was being passed around from King Strife’s careful grip to the more tense and shaking embrace of King Leon. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the castle, another baby was trying to do much of the same to little avail.

\---

The servants’ quarters were located in a small entrance tucked away behind the kitchens, and while they weren't incredibly spacious, they were homey, and quite comfortable. 

Kings Strife and Leon insisted upon treating their workers with dignity. Servants' housing was provided for free with their jobs, including one to two rooms for each family or group of friends to use should they have applied together. Anything that they needed was readily provided when asked, as long as there were materials to share, which there always were, because the kings made sure of it. The workers were people. They deserved, in the kings' opinion, to be treated as such. 

Since it was a holiday, most of the staff were not required to work, and had left the various rooms around the complex in favor of joining the celebrations in the main hall. That left the quarters unusually empty. All was peaceful and quiet, except for the room in the very back…

“Oh, Riku,” Whispered the young servant boy, brushing a hand through the child’s silver hair. “Don’t cry. It’s just people having fun, there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

In spite of the servant’s cheerfulness, the changeling was still too young to understand much behind the words, only hearing the positive upturn of the servant’s voice as he attempted to comfort him. Riku continued fussing, uncaring of the boy's attempts. 

The boy trying his hardest to cheer his uncaring audience of one was none other than Ventus, one of the youngest employed servants in the palace, and the adopted son of the (now retired) General Aqua. He had a soft demeanor about him; fluffy golden hair, watery blue eyes, homemade clothes, and long arms and legs that were only the slightest bit pudgy in the places that he never lost his baby fat. He wasn't shy about it, joking often that the amount of sweets he ate during the daytime was directly proportional to how hard he was worked in sword practice the night before. His voice was bright and joyful like a candleflame. Many said that they could physically feel him warming the room when he walked in, making it just that much lighter.

Not that Riku cared.

“I don’t think he cares why they’re being loud, Ventus.” Chided a soft voice from Riku’s right. “He doesn’t understand why there’s so much noise when he’s tired."

Ventus looked up, meeting his mother's analytical, but warm blue gaze. She swept a hand through the stunningly blue hair of her bangs, pushing them out of her eyes before returning to the folding that she'd been doing for the evening. 

This was Aqua. Still just as fearsome as she ever had been on the battlefield, Aqua radiated the wisdom and confidence of a warrior, even when the only thing she was doing at the moment was folding laundry. 

"It's just how babies are." Aqua stated calmly. 

He didn't know about that. Most of the time, Riku was perfectly behaved— this was quite out of character for his little brother, so unless he'd decided to change his general behavior for no reason, something seemed like it could be wrong. 

Cocking his head, Ventus humored his mother with a question. “Well, was I like that when I was his age?” 

“You were much worse.” Aqua answered, as she continued to methodically fold some freshly washed linens.

She reached back into the large wicker basket at her feet to place another linen on the pile, then leaned over to a strung line with more to be handled, pushing up her sleeves to the elbows in preparation for more work. “Not that I minded, particularly. You were such an adorable baby.”

“Aqua!” Ventus’ face flushed. “Don’t say things like that!”

He reached down to place his hands over Riku’s little ears, making a show of the words being too inappropriate for the grumpy one-year-old who didn’t give a damn about anything but bedtime. Riku kicked one of his tiny legs at Ventus’ thigh in protest. Unfortunately, it was far too weak for the boy to notice.

Aqua only smiled and pinched one of Ventus’ cheeks before brushing off her skirt to take a seat next to him, restarting her folding process from the top.

“You know, I never thought that I would end up with another child.” She said. Her face softened with nostalgia, eyes getting lost as she seemed to be remembering something from long ago. “You were an incredibly pleasant surprise, Ven, but a surprise nonetheless. When the lieutenant brought you home to me from where he found you, I thought for sure you would be... well, let’s just say I’m glad that it happened. It was an absolute joy raising you.”

“Aqua…” Ventus said, touched.

“And look now!” The servant woman continued. “Another beautiful, healthy son. I couldn’t ask for better children.”

Ventus looked down at Riku, who had been persistently kicking him with the fury of a baby scorned.

“Well,” He joked. “You could certainly try.”

Ventus was saved from getting smacked by Riku himself, who chose that moment to start crying. The two servants looked at each other, exchanging matching looks of concern for the little wailing boy. It was strange, really… Riku was usually a very calm child, even when he was tired. Something must’ve _really_ bothered him.

Ventus caved in first. Aqua was fairly used to the sound of children crying, having raised Ventus by herself, but the servant boy was unaccustomed to child-rearing, especially since his little brother hadn’t ever really thrown a tantrum like this before.

“You know what, maybe a change of scenery will knock him out. I’m gonna go take this foghorn for a walk.” He said after several more minutes of Riku whimpering uninterrupted.

“Alright,” Aqua told her eldest. “But no drinking, and be back before midnight.”

Ever the teenager, Ventus rolled his eyes as he gathered Riku into his arms and propped him up on his shoulder.

“Yes, Aqua.” He recited with practiced indifference. He perked up, however, when Aqua leaned over and gave him a kiss on the forehead. Ventus waved with the hand that wasn’t supporting Riku and walked out into the kitchens beyond, closing the door behind him with a little click.

\---

The revelry was in full swing by the time that Ventus left the servant’s quarters with his crying little brother in hand, which made for a lot of difficulty getting into the main hall.

It wasn’t easy for a servant boy to duck around drunk partygoers, who would either see the staff pin on his coat and pull him over for a refill on a pastry or appetizer, or they’d catch sight of Riku and fawn over him, oblivious to the fact that the child was crying.

Riku was a surprisingly silent crier in public, only making sad humming noises in place of the screaming that Ventus had come to associate with young children.

It was a blessing and a curse in this particular instance. At least they wouldn’t be disturbing anyone like this, which was good, but it also meant that absolutely everyone was getting in Ventus’ way as he tried to forge a path to the castle garden.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” Ventus excused to a woman who had demanded he pour her another glass of wine. “But I really don’t have the time for that right now. I’m trying to get my little brother here to somewhere quiet…” He bowed as best he could with Riku still clinging to his jacket, then continued down the passage to the throne room.

“You’re lucky you’re not old enough to deal with customer service, little dude.” He sighed.

Unfortunately for the both of them, Ventus was a lot more correct than he’d intended to be.

The woman whose order he denied on his way to the garden donned a long black cloak, her face hidden by the hood. Her lips pulled into a cruel smile as she watched Ventus’ two-toned jacket slowly disappear into the hordes of party guests. Right before the two left her sight altogether, the woman managed to lock eye contact with Riku, who was still watching over his brother’s shoulder.

She lifted perfectly manicured red claws in greeting. With a swish of her cloak, the woman vanished, leaving behind her only a sense of foreboding and a rolling wave of dark magic.

One thing about changelings that most humans didn’t know was that they were excellent detectors of magic, amongst other things. Their senses of the arcane were more than triple that of a trained human mage.

It made them quite useful as bodyguards when befriended, but in Riku’s unique case, as a changeling being raised with humans, his natural protective instincts were now directed towards his foster mother and sibling instead of just himself.

That being said, Riku was only a year old, which was quite young even by human standards. He wasn’t able to understand the intricacies of the spell the way he would come adulthood. Even so, Riku got the sudden feeling of _danger._

But what could he do about it? Ventus didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, which was frustrating. He considered a way to get his attention. Riku was still figuring out the finer details of communication, however, and could only indicate that something was wrong by hugging Ventus’ shoulder in the tightest grip he could manage and making a distressed hum.

Ventus just absentmindedly reassured the child that he was walking as fast as he could.

And so, unknowingly, Ventus started a series of events that would lead to a lifetime of difficulty for both his little brother and the crown prince, both of whom were far too young to have the claws of destiny dig into their shoulders.

Event one occurred only a few seconds after the woman had vanished. A pool of dark energy sprung into existence in the throne room, directly behind King Leon’s gargantuan seat, whereupon a figure emerged. It glided without moving its feet, it flew without nary a sound. The figure lifted its arms over the sleeping prince and stole him away from the cradle he’d been resting in. Darkness seeped from the pool back over the figure, Prince Sora held tight to it, and before King Leon had noticed anything awry, it sank into the shadows once again.

The next event was quick to follow. All Ventus had to do to ensure that it happened was keep doing what he was doing.

Finally, after stumbling through what felt like hundreds of rushed service requests, Ventus arrived at the door to the royal gardens, sighing like an immense weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The carved wooden doors were a relief to his fatigue, as beyond them was peace, quiet, and hopefully an open seat to rock his tired baby brother to sleep in.

It wasn’t ideal in every sense of the word. The islands tended to be pretty humid even at night, which was a problem for his hair, and some noise from the partying was still bound to leak outside, but Ventus would take what he could get. “C’mon, Riku. Let’s get this settled so you can sleep.”

Waterlogged air descended upon him as soon as he opened the door, causing Ventus to recoil with disgust. It was gonna be a _pain_ brushing his hair out tonight.

He kicked it shut with one of his horribly abused shoes and started scanning amongst the bushes of hibiscus and the swaying palm trees for a bench to sit at.

What he didn’t notice as he hopped around, whistling a tune, was the pair of cold eyes watching him from the window with a glittering blanket held just so that no one could see it.

After some time of pointing out constellations to Riku, rocking him back and forth in an infinite pattern, Ventus reached up and stroked the child’s hair, yawning. “I don’t know how you’re not asleep yet,” He muttered. “I’m about to pass out over here, and it’s not even midnight!”

“Correct.” Said a voice from behind him, right before a thud rang out.

Ventus fell to the ground.

The hooded figure stood tall over him, unnaturally so, stepping unhurriedly over the servant’s unconscious form toward the confused and now _very_ upset changeling baby sprawled out on his brother’s chest.

\---

Maleficent gazed proudly down to the scene she’d created, letting out a soft chuckle at how comically flimsy humans were. Compared to high-ranking fae such as herself, her _creation’s_ adoptive brother was a pathetic example of strength and an even worse excuse for magic. She took high pleasure in stepping on the adolescent’s unarmored back just to hear the symphony of crackling bones under her heel.

“My son…” The sorceress addressed, lifting the crying child to her eye level. “It would appear as though my magic has been successful on your appearance.”

Riku had, indeed, manifested the physical features that Maleficent had demanded, with hair that was whiter than snow and eyes reminiscent of a glacier. The fangs and claws had yet to appear on his little body, and even more disappointing was his distinct lack of wings. But it was of little importance, the sorceress supposed; Riku still had many years to go before her patience would run thin on his lack of intimidating traits. It was entirely possible to be powerful while appearing weak. It may even be a commodity if used correctly. The dark sorceress need not worry about that, however, since her spell was proficient enough that the child would be horrifyingly monstrous if given time.

He _must_ be ready for ritual magic by this point, even if his body’s development was going much slower than initially anticipated.

To her dismay, Riku did not respond to any of her pulses of darkness beyond squirming unhappily. It seemed that the veritable human cockroach that she was crushing under her foot had not taught him any of the basics of magic yet.

“How weak.” She scoffed. He was already an entire _year_ old. Back in Maleficent’s day, even lowly creatures such as changelings were fully realized magicians before they turned six months. “Well, while your spellwork is at painfully beginner levels, I’m sure we can still bring this ritual to completion anyhow. Come, now.” Maleficent ordered.

Wooden staff summoned to her hand, she let go of Riku and readied herself to open a dark portal to the cauldron room. It took only a few seconds for the portal to reach its full strength, but as she stepped inside, she wondered why the child was not following.

Riku was on the ground again, shaking with pain and discomfort from his apparent fall.

“What is wrong? Can you not fly?” The sorceress asked, annoyance striking across her face. “Of course you cannot. Never trust humans to teach a baby levitation.” She scooped him up like she had done for the miserable prince, then marched through the portal with conviction.

\---

A favorite thing of the fae, whether for entertainment or practical purposes unknown, was to do actions in threes. Maleficent used this concept well in her practice, giving every ritual that she did three distinct steps to reach completion. It kept things simple and clean for the most efficient casting. And, with the two stolen children now laying out before her on opposite ends of the room, Maleficent was ready to commence the third phase of her plan.

A year’s wait meant that it was high time for Maleficent’s true power to begin seizing the land. Her spell was ready to be cast… with all components now alive and in place.

“Cease your crying, child. We’re going to be doing a little bit of magic tonight.” The sorceress crooned, leaning on her staff. “Isn’t it exciting?”

Riku was restrained to a table in a chain of darkness, which was hardly necessary, but Maleficent was nothing if not for dramatics. On the other end lay the still-sleeping prince, wrapped in the same chains. Neither of them were old enough to even understand where they were. It was highly unlikely that they would attempt to break out.

Maleficent paced slowly around the room, muttering chants under her breath that caused red smoke to billow from the cracks in the stone wall. “This should only take a minute.” She called. Riku fussed in place, but otherwise remained silent.

The smoke coalesced into a thick, almost tangible form in the center, clinging to the ceiling and stretching downwards like a stalactite. It stayed there in its shimmering state until the sorceress completed nine full rounds of the room. She ended at the north, then walked slowly to the center as she raised her arms to the crimson smoke, caressing it through her fingers while she mouthed a silent prayer.

Her lips parted in a long inhale, drawing the clouds into her body. Smoke was on her breathe through her next exhale, and when Maleficent opened her eyes, they were the same red shade.

Event three was upon them: The high fae ritual of binding.

_“Thread of life, your powers great_

_Allow me once to change this fate_

_So I may curse this wicked child_

_To fall to a monster’s sultry wiles_

_And on his seventeenth year, that day_

_His love will take his breath away.”_

Two vials appeared in her hands as she threw her head back and vomited up plumes of smoke into the high ceiling above. It was moving now, sentient, thrashing and raving like a storm. Fate was a fickle thing to wrangle. Separating into seven different coils, it spread in every direction before thinning out into a small red cord, tight and strong like a spiderweb.

Maleficent glided over to where Riku lay with unbridled glee on her unsightly-looking face, holding one of the vials like a vice in her left hand, then tucking the other into her sleeve. Out from her cloak in its place was the very same shining knife that she’d used on the night of the changeling’s birth.

“ _The blood of old gods gone anew_

_A taste of honey and wine for two.”_

The pale skin of Riku’s wrist was marred by the cut of the dagger in a flash, his blood dripping down into the vial until it was full. She let his little arm drop without doing so much as a simple spell to heal it.

Heedless of his cries, Maleficent continued onward towards where Prince Sora slept, propping his mouth open with her knife to pour the vial’s contents down his throat. As soon as it was empty, she rifled through the royal blankets for the prince’s tiny arm to do the same. The vial filled with the newborn’s blood, so rich that it was almost black.

_“A monster come, a monster be_

_A monster too becometh he_

_To kill the one he holds so dear_

_The hatred will become his fear.”_

But she was unable to give the drink to Riku, for when Maleficent stood over him, seconds from forcing him to swallow it, the dark sorceress was interrupted by a cloth-wrapped sword bursting directly through her chest.

_“WHAT?”_ She screeched, clutching her bosom in horror. “You fool! Do you know what you’ve done?”

The lines of fate sagged from where they hovered, unwinding and wrapping themselves into giant rings around the perimeter of the room. Maleficent fell to her knees. Between her shouts, blood began pouring out of her mouth. “Do you have any _idea_ what you’ve just tampered with?”

King Strife surveyed the ritual before him that was quickly descending into absolute madness. “No, I don’t. Perhaps I’ll find the ability to give a shit after I’ve gotten my son back.” He deadpanned.

“It won’t be your son you’ll be worried about, you _cretin!”_ The sorceress wailed. “Your actions have disturbed the fates. There is no telling what will happen to him now, there is no telling what will happen to any of us! You’ve left yourself at the mercy of their great wrath!” Her eyes blackened, then sickeningly, _melted out of their sockets_ into a pile of revolting sludge on King Strife’s boot.

“I think you have more pressing matters to deal with.” He responded with a shudder.

There was no answering quip from the sorceress this time. The ground underneath the king’s feet swayed, rumbling dangerously, and when he looked up, he realized that rocks were beginning to fall from the ceiling at an alarming rate.

He glanced back at the woman, who screamed murderously with no regard for the environmental change. “…Whatever.”

Pulling his sword out of Maleficent’s now gaping chest wound, King Strife ran to the table where his son was still tied up in chains of darkness. Tugging at them did nothing to dislodge them. He’d have to think of something else, quick.

He fixated on the cracks in the wall where the red smoke was now slowly filtering out of. They buzzed with pure magic, bathing the room in an eerie glow.

_Light._

Humans were nowhere near as proficient with light magic as some other species, but he had no access to the royal mages at the moment, so he’d just have to deal with it for the time being. The king readied his sword over his head. Light gathered hesitantly to the edge of the blade at his direction, coating it evenly. “This better work.” He said to no one in particular before swinging it down on the chain so hard that his feet momentarily left the floor.

The chain snapped. King Strife rushed to gather Sora into his grasp, muscles already tensing to break into a sprint for the exit until he had a thought that slowed him down.

That frantic servant boy who’d retrieved him— He said his baby brother was here, too.

He swiveled around. There weren’t many places to hide here, so he found the other baby pretty easily under chains on the other side. A quick repeat of the light spell broke them off, allowing him to stash the child in his free arm and jump the distance to the portal he came in through.

King Strife threw himself into a roll, protecting the two children by tucking them into his chest and shielding the impact with his back. They came up unharmed and standing a moment later on the polished marble of the palace floor.

“Close the door, the ceiling’s going down!” The king commanded.

“Roger!” Ventus, who’d constructed it, responded with a salute. He took stance and pulled his face into a grimace of concentration. The portal shrank in choppy intervals, going from the size of a doorframe to a dinnerplate, and then from that to a dime, and then it was gone.

\---

All celebration had paused the moment that King Strife had gone to rescue his son, leaving the throne room full of hundreds of confused citizens staring at their leader in drunken awe. Not a sound could be heard throughout the entire hall save for the king’s labored breathing and the soft mewling cries coming from Riku.

Exhaustion wasted no time catching up to him now that his life wasn’t in any immediate danger, though with Prince Sora and the servant baby still in his arms, he couldn’t afford to rest. King Strife turned to the servant and regarded him with tired eyes. “I believe I have something of yours here.”

The kid perked up almost immediately, nearly falling over in his haste to take back his baby brother. “Riku!”

Ventus’ hands shook as he reached to the king’s arm and carefully drew Riku away, avoiding his still raw wound so as not to disturb it. The child appeared otherwise unharmed. He sagged in relief, giving him another once over to make sure he didn’t miss anything, then dropped to his knees with his brother held to him securely. “Your Majesty… thank you.” King Strife gave him a slow nod.

“Do you know where my husband is?” He asked the servant boy, who blinked in surprise at the question. Ventus shook his head to indicate that he didn’t.

Figures.

The king let out a long-suffering sigh, placing his now free hand on the top of the servant’s head. “In that case, I will now perform the emergency rites of passage to make you a royal knight. Your actions tonight have shown real integrity and bravery: two necessary qualities of a fine warrior. If you swear to do right by the sword and the fist, prioritize your people over the crown, and never give up without a fight, then I will declare you worthy of carrying out a special role that no one else can currently fulfill. Do you accept?”

The servant looked like he’d seen a ghost, eyes wide with uncertainty at what he’d just witnessed, jaw slackened to an open-mouthed expression. “I-I do.”

“Good.” King Strife said. “Hold this.” Prince Sora was then shunted into Ventus’ arms as the king promptly collapsed.

Medics poured in from seemingly nowhere to take him back his chambers, leaving the stunned and shaken Ventus on the floor with a sudden addition to his family reunion. Well… the more the merrier, he guessed.

Shortly after the king was removed, the party started back up again. Most citizens had absolutely no idea what had happened, but it made for good gossip, so they went happily back to talking and laughing with their friends like a dark sorceress hadn’t just kidnapped the royal baby whose birthday they were celebrating. Ventus had _no_ energy left to deal with it. So he didn’t.

He stumbled tiredly across the throne room to the great hall, in through the kitchens, and straight to the very back of the servants’ quarters, where Aqua was still calmly folding laundry.

“You look like shit.” Aqua commented on his rumpled appearance, at the same time that Ventus shouted “I got knocked out!” with a cheeky thumbs up.

He gave his rightly concerned mother as much of an explanation as he could with his head still spinning, handing the finally sleeping Riku to her so he could be healed up and tucked into bed. He still had a royal duty to take care of. So, despite his bed looking like the most tempting force in the universe right at that moment, Ventus was forced to pass up going to sleep at a reasonable time in exchange for completing the king’s mission of getting Prince Sora back to at least one of his other conscious parents.

Meanwhile, trailing silently after the servant and the sleeping prince, were the invisible lines of fate.

Neither the human king nor that boy had done anything wrong in trying to stop their spell; Maleficent was the one who was being reckless in trying to harness the fates for a curse, when the balance was not ready to be disturbed so. Darkness had reigned supreme for decades in this kingdom. It was time for the light to shine, for it to restore the kingdom to a state of glory, enlightenment, and peace.

It would not be quite so simple now. Despite how powerful fate was, Maleficent was meticulous enough in her spellwork that they couldn’t disobey her commands. At least, not directly…

They had an idea for this “monster” she wished to create.

Sora was returned to the grateful watch of his mothers for the rest of the evening, and as things in the palace settled down, the lines of fate started work on a new, brilliant tapestry.


	3. Ambitions

Security at the Destiny Islands castle was increased to a ridiculous size for a long time following the kidnapping incident.

King Strife and King Leon had always been quite introverted to the public eye, appearing very little except during necessary announcements of policy updates, but this time, it was pretty obvious to servants and other staff that the two were taking their new son’s safety _very_ seriously. Guards were assigned to every entrance from the ground floor all the way to the watchtowers at the top. The gates were shut as soon as Sora’s birthday celebration was over, not to be opened again for quite some time.

Ventus hadn’t been sure how to feel about it the day that he saw the large wooden doors being slammed and locked shut. Sure, he lived at the castle, but the idea that he wouldn’t be able to leave as he pleased unsettled him a bit, even if it was to keep the prince safe. He understood the idea, though. Ventus would probably never be able to take Riku out for walks again without feeling like things were about to go south at any minute.

But life carried on. The years started picking up, days came and went, and before he knew it, his little brother was walking, talking, and generally wreaking havoc around the castle, just like Ventus used to do when he was a kid.

That’s not _entirely_ true. Riku seemed to be more opposed to havoc than any respectable five-year-old that Ventus had ever met. He’d grown to be quiet and polite, most of the time sitting in contemplative silence when he wasn’t following him or Aqua around by the hand, helping with whatever task they’d been assigned to that day. Ventus had to admit, though, it was really adorable.

Both he and Aqua were more than delighted when Riku had first started speaking. Though the kid was quick on the uptake while learning how to walk, he’d refused to talk for a very long time. Ventus was the first one to hear him do it. His first word was said when the two of them were together for a job around the time that Riku was three years old, a fact that he’d never let Aqua live down until the day she died.

He remembered that they had been walking out to the waterfall to gather some fresh cooking water for the chefs when Riku made a vaguely recognizable sound. It sounded something like “Veh” or “Vah”. Ventus stopped dead in his tracks to encourage him, no longer caring about getting back on time.

“Say Ventus!” He cheered. “Ven-tus. Come on, you can do it!”

Riku mostly just stared at him shyly, fisting the fabric of Ventus’ pants between his tiny fingers. It’d taken a lot of coaxing before he’d muttered “Ven” softly to the ground.

Ventus had jumped up and pumped his fist in the air, whooping and hollering the whole way back to the kitchens with Riku riding on his shoulders like a mini war general returning from the greatest battle of his career.

The best thing about it was how Aqua had tried to play it off like she wasn’t _totally_ jealous. Regardless of how Riku saw the interaction, Ventus considered it to be a victorious show of favoritism.

Aside from that, the years had been mostly uneventful for their little three-person family. Aqua and Ventus worked most of the day in relative solitude, being given different tasks that led them to opposing areas of the castle, but they always made sure that the three of them would get together as soon as the sun went down and their shifts were over. Their group activities generally consisted of cooking, weaving, doing laundry, or Riku’s favorite: sword fighting.

Ever since Ventus could remember, Aqua had been teaching him how to fight in their free time, just in case he would ever need it for some reason or another. It was a lot of fun. Their sparring matches were long and draining, but satisfying. He _lived_ for the burn in his muscles and the sharp glint of the moon off the steel of his blade in the otherwise total darkness.

Riku was still way too young and small to handle a sword, but he was the one who loved it most of all. A strange look got into his eyes when he watched Aqua and Ventus running at each other in preparation to strike. He thought it was amazing, and wanted nothing more than to try it as soon as possible, despite the fact that he didn’t have a proper sparring partner. “Go Ven!” He’d yell into the night. “I believe in you, Aqua!”

One day, after sparring practice was over, Riku bolted up to them, wasting no time questioning Aqua about every move that she made, how she did it, and if she’d please please _please_ teach him someday. She smiled at him and answered as many questions in the lineup that she could recall with any degree of certainty while Ventus wrung out his sweat-soaked shirt into the grass.

“If you like swords so much, maybe you can be a knight someday, like Ventus.” Aqua teased. Ventus blushed at the comment, though Riku didn’t notice that she was being facetious and jumped around in excitement.

“Oh come on, you know that it’s in title only.” Ventus sighed, feeling kind of bad that he’d have to let his little brother down with the disappointing reality. “King Strife just awarded it to me so that Prince Sora wouldn’t be crushed when he fainted…”

“You’ve met Prince Sora?” Riku interrupted, curious inflection in his voice. Aqua hummed faintly in response. _You’re on your own for this one._

“Kind of.” Ventus admitted. “He was very, _very_ little back then. Not even a day old when we met. I helped him get back to his parents when he… let’s just say he got lost.” He tapped out at the last part, not sure if it was the best time or place to tell Riku that he and the prince had both been kidnapped by the same megalomaniacal sorceress right after Riku’s first birthday.

He was none the wiser to Ventus’ hesitation, much to the servant boy’s relief.

“Wow, you really _are_ a knight!” Riku exclaimed. At Ventus’ confused head tilt, he continued, “Real knights always have someone to protect. When I grow up, maybe I’ll be able to fight to protect the prince, too.”

“I don’t see a reason why not.” Aqua responded, ruffling his hair. “You can bring it up with King Strife sometime; see if he’ll knight you.”

As they gathered their equipment to take back to the servants’ quarters, Riku fell slowly back into his usual silence, but the spark in his eyes never diminished. Ventus could tell that he was still thinking about it when he tucked him into bed. The boy was practically vibrating with happiness over the mere idea of wearing cool metal armor, protecting Prince Sora with a mighty sword against a vicious monster that wanted to take him. Aqua laughed at the notion when Riku ranted about this daydream to her, but Ventus was _sweating_ at how close he got to guessing what actually happened.

Riku went to sleep that night dreaming of swords, and what his specialized armor would look like once he was knighted.

\---

Things continued on their merry way, mundane and simple, until the date of the bi-annual Meeting of the Royal Knights was announced by King Strife.

Every staff member in the palace was required to attend whenever the kings had information to give out. Even without normal citizens being allowed inside, the staff filled up the throne room pretty effectively all on their own. Guards, servants, chefs, gardeners, construction teams, mages, and of course, the knight platoon, all stood waiting for King Strife and King Leon to speak from their place at the raised platform where their thrones rose high to the ceiling.

People shifted around and chatted lightly to fill their current silence. Aqua and Ventus were some of the only people not making small talk in the crowd, both of them placing a hand on either of Riku’s shoulders protectively and keeping their other on the hilt of their weapons.

Riku neither knew or cared about the perceived danger, just moving every now and again to make sure he still had an okay view past everyone’s legs.

“Attention!” Called King Leon. Conversation ceased immediately at the sound of his voice, leaving just the noise of metal armor shifting as the guards dropped to one knee and the knights stood to salute before doing the same.

Ventus glanced hesitantly at Aqua. She ushered him to follow their lead, even though he wasn’t technically a part of the knight platoon, and wore comparably pathetic armor. It’s not like he didn’t _want_ to join… but between being paranoid about Riku and worried about possibly offending his kings, Ventus had never bothered to comply before.

“Riku will be fine, Ven. I’ll make sure that nothing happens.” She assured. “All you have to do is salute and then take a knee. They might not even notice whether or not you do it in a group of this size.”

He glanced down at Riku, whose eyes were glittering at the sight of his heroes. “Alright. But watch him, please.” Ventus whispered back. He removed his hands from his brother’s shoulder and stepped forward to complete the knight’s conduct.

“As I’m sure you all are wondering, the reason why we’ve gathered everyone here today is for a very special convention of the Royal Knights.” King Leon started. “For the first time in over seven years, there will be a new member joining them at the table during their meetings. We hope you will welcome the new recruit with open arms and treat him as one of your own.” He addressed to the knights, who were now bowing their heads to express their assent with this order.

“This recruit was unable to have a proper ceremony, as his vows were taken during an emergency service to your other king, His Majesty Cloud Strife. We cannot express what it meant to us, but we hope that this will suffice.” Motioning to King Strife himself, the man stepped forward with two items held in hand.

“I hereby call forward Royal Knight Ventus to receive the tools of his knighthood, and to renew his vows before this court.” King Strife spoke into the hushed crowd.

Well _that_ was unexpected.

Riku gasped and spun around on his heel to look up at his big brother’s face in awe. “Yeah, Ven!” He said in a stage whisper, too excited to be the calm and aloof personality he liked to present around strangers. Aqua just smiled, as though she’d been waiting for the news, and pushed him forward.

He took small steps all the way up to the dais. The way that his footsteps echoed through the room made him slightly self-conscious, causing him to draw in on himself a little bit even though, logically, he knew that he should be walking to receive these honors with pride.

Ventus paused once he was in front of the king, trying not to faint at the intimidating figure before him. King Strife hadn’t been that scary when he was trying to help him rescue Riku and Prince Sora, but then again, he supposed that brotherly panic had probably dulled most of the fear right out of him in the moment.

“Ventus.” King Strife said, looking him up and down. “I apologize that you had to wait this long for your initiation ceremony. It was an oversight on my part, and I should have acted on it sooner.”

“Not a problem, Your Majesty.” Ventus choked.

He smirked. “This is the second time, it seems, that I have something that belongs to you.” In his right hand, he presented a sheathed longsword with a beautiful silver handle. Altering his volume to be heard by the audience, the king spoke. “Do you vow to do right by the sword and the fist, protect the people over the crown, and _never_ ,” The king emphasized. “give up without a fight?”

A bead of sweat made its way down the back of Ventus’ shirt. “I swear it.”

He fidgeted out of nervousness when King Strife suddenly stepped towards him. There was a feeling of velvet cloth being draped around his shoulders, and by the time he could realize what’d just happened, the king was already drawing back to pin the material in place at Ventus’ collarbone.

“To your knees.” The king commanded. Ventus dropped. On either side of his face, the king tapped his shoulders with the barest amount of pressure from the gigantic sword that usually hung at his back. “I declare you worthy to wield this blade.”

The larger sword was hung back onto the king’s leather backstrap, and he took out the silver-handled one from earlier, placing it gingerly in the servant boy’s outstretched arms.

Ventus looked down at the weapon in his hands, testing its weight, feeling the grip of the handle with a starstruck look on his face. “It’s beautiful,” He started to say, but the king was already pulling him to his feet and turning him around to face the audience.

Everyone in the room took to one knee, bowing to him as was customary for the soldiers of the Destiny Islands. Ventus’ eyes focused on the familiarity of his mother’s electric blue hair and the glinting silver of his little brother to calm the racing beat of his heart. This many people had never been focused on him all at once. It was both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.

“Hail to the new Royal Knight!” King Strife called, to an echoing chant. “Hail Ventus!”

\---

Ventus was happy to hear that his schedule wouldn’t be changing much in spite of his newly-given title.

It turned out that King Strife hadn’t expected him to join the primary knight platoon after all, but rather to be a part of an emergency squadron, whose experience ranged from widely different skillsets such as magic all the way to archery; each of them having received their own special weapon of choice as thanks for completing a service to the throne. Though it happened frequently, the recipients of said weapons were not expected to join the Royal Military or the elite group of soldiers that flanked the kings whenever they left the palace, which was a relief to him, since he wasn’t eager to leave his mom and little brother all alone and move to the barracks by himself.

In any case, he was still officially considered to be a knight, and thus was allowed to join them during their bi-annual banquet. The details about it had been announced shortly after Ventus returned to his family’s side, though everything went right over his head. He was simply exhausted from the emotional high.

His excitement, however, was nothing compared to Riku’s. The kid was absolutely _ecstatic._

While Ventus had been spacing out in the deepest reaches of nowhereville, population: him, Riku was hanging on to every word that the kings said like a snake to a charmer. “Did you hear?” Riku whispered to him during dinner that evening. “Aqua and I get to come with you to the banquet. It’s going to be so much fun, going together!”

The information took yet another weight off of Ventus’ chest, since he’d been worried about not knowing anyone once he got there. “Yeah, I should hope so. I know you’re excited to meet the Royal Knights, aren’t you?” Riku nodded with vigor.

“I wanna ask them to teach me how to sword fight!” The kid said proudly, like he’d rehearsed exactly how he would convince them and was sure it would work without a hitch.

“You know, Riku, I can teach you.” Aqua offered in between bites of her salad. Neither of them were surprised that the whispering hadn’t worked on her. “I taught Ventus, after all.”

He pondered this for a minute, seeming to genuinely consider the possibility, then shook his head. “I do want to learn _some_ things from you, mama, but you won’t let me spar with you yet, and I really want to learn _now_.”

“Riku, you’re five.” She said, laughing. “The only reason why I won’t spar with you is because my sword weighs more than your entire body. Once you get a bit bigger, I’ll teach you anything you want to know.” Riku grumbled but couldn’t think of a good way to argue his point further.

“Why does Ven get to learn?” the changeling boy asked, stabbing at his salad with his fork like it had personally wronged him.

“Ven is seventeen.” Aqua answered simplistically.

Ventus decided then that he’d steer the conversation topic to something a little less sensitive for Riku before something happened to make him upset.

Early the next morning, right after sunrise, all three of them began preparing for what was most likely going to be a long, fancy affair that would take up the majority of the evening, if not extending into the early hours of the following day.

It’d take a while for Ventus to make alterations on his and Aqua’s dress clothes at the rate he was going at right now. The lace on Aqua’s gown was frayed at the edges from overuse, meaning that he’d have to sew a whole new string of it on the bottom. His own black and white formal jacket hadn’t been used since Prince Sora’s birthday. It would definitely need to be resized for his much larger and lankier young-adult body… he predicted that it might be easier to just throw it out entirely and construct some new dress clothes from a tunic he’d been working on.

The rest of the time was to be dedicated to tailoring an outfit for Riku, who’d never attended something like this, and had thus never needed anything fancy. He was going to have his hands full.

Aqua patted his shoulder in sympathy for his plight. While she was good with most household chores, her strong suit was much more in the battle category, not something as long-winded and delicate as sewing. Ventus was the one with the most textile skill between the two of them, leaving him to carry out most of the work for their outfits while she would get the more unfortunate task of wrestling Riku into taking a bath, preferably with _soap,_ stars be willing, and convincing the child to wear the new clothes instead of his old ones. Ventus didn’t envy her. He gave a pitying thumbs up, then took to his sewing.

Aqua, in the meantime, rolled up her sleeves and steeled herself for a challenge.

She and Riku had both relocated to the bathing room just past the servant’s quarters, which had four tubs in different closed-off sections. Two of them were in use despite the early hour. Aqua had steered Riku into the one at the very back and shut the door behind them, immediately beginning to rummage through the cabinets for supplies.

Fluffy towels, lavender-scented bath soap, and some washcloths were all taken out and laid by the tub as she instructed Riku to strip down. Her fingers crossed in hopes that he wouldn’t refuse this time and try to take a bath completely clothed, just like the time before, and the time before that, and the one proceeding, so on and so forth to infinity. Silence followed her command just as it always did.

But then, miraculously, Riku sighed and struggled out of his worn yellow lace-up vest and black shorts.

“Are you sure you’re still the same Riku who came in here with me?” Aqua asked once he’d extended a foot into the bathwater to check its temperature. “You never get in without a fight.”

He looked uncomfortable with the confrontation, as though he’d been hoping that she wouldn’t notice, but it was really hard for her _not_ to notice when every other bath day had ended up with Riku miserably wearing his soaked clothes around the castle, clinging to his equally drenched mother as she tried to complete her daily chores with him glued to her leg.

“Mmm.” Riku responded softly. “I don’t know. What if I see the prince there? I don’t think he’d let me fight to protect him if he found out that I smell like your sword polish all the time.”

_Well._

Aqua huffed at her son, feeling the sudden urge to defend the rough-and-tumbled look, even though she’d complained to him about that very thing while trying to get him into the bathtub on occasions prior. This wasn’t the effect that she’d desired— he shouldn’t be worried about appearing properly royal at such a young age. She combed her fingers through his hair apologetically as he slowly sank into the water below the surface. “Making a good impression is important, but, between you and me, I think that the prince shouldn’t care. He should appreciate that someone wants to help him, regardless of whether or not they smell like sword polish.”

He hummed. “Maybe.”

Riku dunked his head underwater for a second to get it wet, coming up with his thick hair plastered to his scalp. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” Aqua meandered out loud in the midst of frothing up the soap bar in one of the washcloths. “Why _do_ you want to be his knight so bad, Riku?” He looked up at her with a bit of pink on his cheeks.

“Well… you mean, aside from how cool swords and armor and dragons are?”

“Yes, aside from that.”

The changeling child kicked his legs absentmindedly in the water as he considered what she asked. Aqua finished preparing his washcloth and handed it over, reaching into the satchel that she carried everywhere to find a hairbrush for him.

“You’re gonna think it’s stupid.” He admitted sheepishly.

She looked at him with her eyebrow arched. “I’d never think you were stupid, Riku. Where did you get an idea like that?” Riku just shrugged and immersed himself deeper into the bathwater.

“Ven told me that Prince Sora isn’t allowed to leave his parents’ chambers until he turns eighteen.” He mumbled. “He said it’s to keep him safe from people who’d want to take him, but… don’t you think that the prince would be,” His hands waved around in a floppy, unintelligible gesture. “You know. Lonely?”

Riku sighed and folded his arms at the edge of the tub, plopping his head down on top of them with a wet noise. “If I were stuck there without you or Ven, I would want someone to be my friend, too. Maybe I can convince the king to let him leave sometimes if I’m there to protect him.”

Aqua felt her heart melt for Riku as his little voice trailed off, made even smaller by the wide, open acoustics of the room. “That’s very sweet of you.” 

“D-Don’t tell Ven! Or the prince!” He threatened suddenly. “It’d be _so_ embarrassing.”

“I promise.” She confirmed, before surprise attacking his hair with her brush. Laughter and the sound of Riku’s distressed squawking echoed off of the walls until the two of them were able to leave the bathing room some time later, Aqua looking satisfied with herself, the walking towel-blob that was Riku, not so much.

By the time that Aqua had herded Riku back to their bunks in the servants’ quarters, Ventus was just finishing up the hem on his mother’s gown. He snickered at Riku’s angry teal eyes poking out of his towel prison along with a few freshly brushed but still messy locks of his hair. To Ventus’ amusement, Riku stuck his tongue out at his brother, then burrowed deeper into the fluff like an annoyed silver squirrel.

“It looks like your endeavors were successful.” Ventus joked. “So, Aqua, I wanted to show you the design I’ve been thinking about for my new jacket…”

\---

Aqua had to admit, Ventus had done an absolutely stellar job at fixing her dress. It looked better than new with its restored lace trim, redone hem, and specially added flowing ribbons tied primly around her waist. He had her stand in the full piece for a few last-minute measurements with her arms held out in the air so the lace train on her sleeves would be visible in all their glory.

“I think it looks fine, Ven. You should be focusing on your own outfit now.” She cautioned. “We’re going to be late if you keep making adjustments to the sleeves.”

“I don’t tell you how to do your job.” Ventus quipped back through the pin held between his lips. The pin was pulled out and stuck through a tear in the fabric on her arm, which he made note of on his sketch of the dress before running off to grab a needle. Aqua sighed heavily at her son’s retreating figure as she stared into the waning sunlight from the window.

They really were going to be late to Ventus’ first Royal Banquet, weren’t they?

“Have you checked on Riku?” Aqua called after him, straining to see to the hallway where the servant boy was rifling through boxes of sewing supplies. “I sent him to go change about twenty minutes ago, don’t you think he should be back by now?”

Ventus shook his head once he’d reentered the room. “Haven’t seen him. I can get him when I go to change if you want.” He offered, threading his needle, tying it at the end, then taking Aqua’s arm in his steady hands as he blasted through a row of neat stitches.

“Speaking of which, hurry up on that. We don’t have much daylight left, and the invitation said–″

“Sundown. I know.” His hand carrying the needle momentarily dropped, making a trail of thread to where his eyes were spacing out somewhere past Aqua’s sleeve. He recovered quickly enough and used his pocket knife to slice the thread off at the appropriate point.

Ventus gave her a once-over, declared her dress to be as good as he could get it, then gathered his clothes for the upcoming evening and hauled ass to the room containing their bunks.

He found Riku sitting on his bed and fidgeting awkwardly in the golden suit jacket that he’d been given. It seemed to fit him well, but Riku hated adjusting to new clothes in even the best of times, so Ventus took his slight twitching as a sign that he’d made it as comfortable as possible. The navy-blue pants that Ventus made for him looked good with the gold just as he’d predicted in his designs. All that he needed to complete the look was his pair of shiny black boots that Aqua had picked up from the shoe smith, which Riku was toeing half-heartedly with his socked foot. “Hey, Ri. Almost ready to go?”

Ventus walked over to the mirror, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to tug his work shirt over his head. The button kept snagging in his fluffy blond hair before it would come off all the way. Riku stopped playing with his boots when he saw Ventus getting ready, leaning over to tug them on and lace them up. “Yeah. Are you?”

“Oh definitely.” He responded, shirt hanging off his head and tangled in his arms. “I heard that a bare chest and a ratty shirt bunched up around your neck is the hot new trend right now. Do you think one of the nobles might take me as a consort?” Ventus struck a pose, causing his little brother to giggle at the ridiculousness.

It didn’t take much longer after that for him to finally yank the fabric out of his hair and continue dressing. Clothes seemed to fly every which way in a tornado as he pried off the rest of his work outfit, replacing each piece subsequentially with one of his personal pieces. Golden buttons shaped like jagged hearts lined his new half-black half-white jacket, which he fastened into place with nimble fingers. He’d chosen to make his pants mostly black, but each leg had a white guard pad installed by the knees, which would help to minimize discomfort from kneeling on the marble floors. The king’s velvet cloak went over his shoulders last, which he pinned at the front with a matching but much larger heart clip. He took the new sword to rest at his hip.

“ _Now_ I’m ready.” Ventus announced.

While Riku busied himself laughing about this, Ventus grabbed him by his tiny hand and tugged him out the door.

The two of them reconvened with Aqua a few minutes later in the hall. She was happy to see Riku dressed up and not trying to kill anyone for it, which was a rarity for him. Linking Ventus’ free arm with hers, their little family started to walk, ready for whatever the evening would have in store.

\---

As all castles do, the Destiny Islands castle had secrets. _Many_ secrets. There were hundreds of hidden rooms, passageways, and corridors that too few people knew about enough to use with any degree of frequency. Some floors of the castle would change where they were located depending on what they felt like. Staircases appeared one day and then vanished the next, leaving not even a trace of their presence behind as their previous entrances were covered by nothing but the repetitive stone brick of the walls on either side. Sora had always been told that it was because of something that lived here, something whose magic was too powerful to be contained in its body.

Personally, he didn’t care much about why it was sentient. He thought that it was _awesome._

Prince Sora spent most of his days running up and down the moving walkways, exploring as many rooms as he could find that had appeared that morning, and charting which rooms had vanished to never be seen again. Then there were some rooms that were there occasionally, meaning they would disappear and then reappear whenever they felt like at a later date. One of his favorites was a room like this; a giant never-ending library that seemed to only exist on Thursdays.

There weren’t that many people around, from what he could gather. He saw his Papa sometimes, in this weird room that was always completely empty other than him when he found it, except for two chairs that extended high into the air. His Dad was usually sitting in the other one. Other than them, plus these two nice ladies who came to visit every now and again, Sora didn’t meet that many people, so he was always excited when he got to see his parents. But he didn’t like the room that he usually found them in. The emptiness of it made him kind of sad.

Most of the places that Sora explored were filled with things. Not people, sure, but there were fountains, waterfalls, deserts, jungles, caves, and every manner of cool artifact to come along with it. The room where he saw his parents was way too clean. There were never any plants or rocks or _anything._

Twice a year, Sora was allowed to leave his area of the castle to have dinner with the Royal Knights. He’d known all of them since he was born, and it was nice to visit, even though none of them ever believed him when he told them about his adventures. The prince was honestly just glad to talk to someone for once.

So, there he was on the day of the first banquet, holding his Papa’s hand as the man gently guided him through the giant door on the opposite end of Sora’s bedroom, that was stiff on its hinges from disuse. The little prince could immediately tell that something was different upon exiting. There wasn’t any hum to the walls the same way it was past his bedroom. It was like… either the castle wasn’t listening, or it was asleep.

“Hey, Papa, why is there no magic here? Where did it go?”

“Don’t worry about it.” The man answered, and that was the end of that. It didn’t matter that much anyway, since it only took a few more minutes for Sora to get distracted and forget about the question entirely. All around him, he could hear voices. Voices, which meant _people._ People who he could see and touch and hear, whom he could talk to and dance with.

He was _really_ excited.

Eventually, as they walked, his Dad showed up to grab Papa’s hand. The tall man leaned down to give a small smile to Sora before asking about what he’d found in his side of the castle that day.

“It was super cool. You should have seen it!” Sora exclaimed. “I found an awesome room that was full of crystals bigger than me! It’s so huge— you can’t even see the floor from the top. Oh, and there’s this minecart in the center that takes you all the way down to the bottom really fast!”

“That sounds like fun.” He agreed, proceeding to listen to his son as the child continued on his fascinated rant the whole way to the banquet hall.

Music drifted through the walls as they approached; a peppy dance tune that made Sora want to yelp with joy and do a bunch of cartwheels in a row. Not really seeing a reason not to, he did just that, prying his arm away from his father’s grip to go absolutely wild. The two kings just stared resignedly at him. They’d decided a long time ago that it was no use trying to teach royal conduct to a hyperactive socially-deprived four-year-old.

Servants who were helping host tonight just laughed and ducked out of his way. King Strife nodded apologetically at a few, though they waved it off. “Kids will be kids”, so they say.

King Leon stepped ahead of them once they’d reached the double doors to the hall. Only ever a gentleman for his husband, he hoisted open the doors for King Strife and their young son, prompting the two of them to descend together into the chaos of the gathering. He entered alone, stopping to slam the doors behind him just in case someone thought he was being too soft.

Sora jumped up and down like a rabbit as King Strife led him inside, enamored with the din of the partygoers around him. He felt as though he’d never seen this many people in one place before even though, theoretically, he’d been acquainted with everyone here in years past. Not that the prince could remember much from previous years. He was still, realistically speaking, way too little to have much of a recollection at all. “Wow… Dad, it’s got to be great being you!” He yelled over the commotion.

The king looked surprised by the admission. “What do you mean by that?” Sora smiled at him the way that only kids can, filled with innocence and too much confidence in saying what’s on their mind.

“You must _never_ get lonely with so many people to talk to!”

King Strife stopped in his tracks, a horrible, almost tangible guilt clawing its way into his chest at his son’s words. However, it didn’t seem like Sora cared much about what he’d just said, gleefully running into the crowd before he could stop him, thus leaving the king to deal with his stirring emotions by himself.

He guessed it was his just desserts.

\---

Riku messed with a loose thread on his jacket as he stared into the procession, feeling equal parts nervous as he was excited.

This was his opportunity to learn some real skills. If he talked to the right people; asked the right questions, he was sure to convince someone to help him. After all, who would know more about becoming a knight than a whole _banquet_ full of them?

He scanned the rows of soldiers marching into the hall for Ventus, who was likely more towards the front as a newer recruit. A group of guards had pulled him away from Riku and Aqua once they’d approached the gathering, telling them that family members and acquaintances were to enter in a different way than the Royal Knights, which made sense, even if it was kind of sad that Ventus wouldn’t be able to join the actual party until all the formalities were over. 

Only a little while longer.

The echoing clank of metal greaves filled the air of the room first. This marked the end of the palace guards’ parade, meaning that the knights where about to begin theirs. A row of lesser knights pulled forward, carrying the Destiny Islands banners on long metal staffs, followed quickly by a row of people blowing horns.

“Introducing platoon one!” Yelled the woman leading them. She unsheathed a gleaming rapier and pointed it up to the ceiling, prompting all of the soldiers in her division to do the same. Together, the drawn weapons created a spectacular image of unity, strength, and fearlessness. They marched forward at the command of their officer, turning around to kneel for the next squadron in line, which was already emerging from the head of the room.

“Hey, there’s Ven!” Aqua exclaimed. She drew Riku close, pointing to Ventus standing front and center at platoon two. They waved at him, to which Ventus gave a tiny nod back, attempting to stay on form as much as possible while letting them know he saw the greeting. A man stepped forward in front of them just as the platoon before.

“Introducing platoon two!” He called, drawing his blade high over his head.

Aqua and Riku whistled as the rest of the knights responded in kind. Ventus looked so cool up there with his new sword, it was like he’d been made to wield it.

The knights joined their comrades in the back of the room, turning to face the giant double doors for the next group out, and the rest of the hall proceeded to do the same in anticipation. There was only one more group in the Royal March, composed of the kings and their escort.

A bright-looking young woman ran in front of the open doorway, bowing politely to the crowd and flashing a cheesy smile. “Introducing the great ninja Yuffie!” She announced.

An arrow flew over her shoulder. Nonplussed, she backflipped out of the way, only stopping when she was balanced upside down on her hand. The woman rolled her eyes. “You guys are no fun.” An unintelligible shout came from behind the doorway, to which she huffed, then jumped back to her feet. “Introducing the famed kings of the Destiny Islands, Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart!”

The guests erupted into cheers as two silhouettes appeared in the doorway. King Strife and King Leon entered from the chamber beyond, walking to face their audience and begin the banquet. King Leon cleared his throat.

“Soldiers, be at ease.”

Each group bowed in succession, filing out to find a seat at one of the many tables scattered around the hall. Ventus popped up behind Riku to ruffle his hair once he’d made it over to them. He took a seat, and when it looked like all the other knights had done the same, the king started to speak.

Riku had been expecting him to break out with a long, boring speech like they usually had to do for announcements, but it turned out that the message this time was pretty short.

“Food will be served in an hour. Enjoy.”

Clapping once again filled the hall and everyone exploded into chatter.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the knights and other guests, their young prince was finding himself to be in a little bit of a predicament while they were busy reconnecting with friends and discussing current events.


	4. Tempting Fate

Every story needs a prince, a knight, a dragon, and an evil sorceress in order to be considered good, but only great stories, in the fates’ professional opinion, had magic.

The universe that the Destiny Islands resided in was home to many different kinds of magic, both light and dark, strong and weak, offensive and defensive, and so on and so forth. It existed on a very fine balance of each. For every shadow there was a light, and for every sunrise there was a night. These forces were not supposed to ever be dominant over another, or else chaos would reign and everything would be returned to the void from which it came.

When Riku was born to the dark sorceress, his body was instilled through her ritual with an immensely powerful darkness. He took his strength from this source. As he grew, so too did his darkness within him, giving him magic beyond anything he could begin to imagine yet. Most entities such as him were not so lucky; they’d never be capable of feats quite as great.

However, this caused a problem for the fates to solve. Maleficent had upset the balance by making him the way that she did. She planned to mold him into a weapon, a monster, when truly, something so dark could not possibly be stable enough to exist without a strong light to keep it in check. Riku would not and _could_ not be exactly what she desired unless she was prepared to deal with the end of all things.

To remedy this, the fates gave Riku a kind, loving heart, and decided to take matters one step further with the boy that Maleficent wanted him to kill.

Sora was given a huge basin of light magic in his soul, equivalent to the dark energy that dwelled within the changeling. To give a human a gift of this magnitude was incredibly rare for the fates. But they saw it as a necessary precaution to cease the ripples in the universe that Maleficent had created, since the destinies of the two were already so thoroughly intertwined. Riku’s darkness would comfort Sora’s intensely burning light. Likewise, the light that the human prince stored within him would soothe Riku’s darkness into something powerful, but manageable to wield as long as he was calm and patient.

Sora didn’t know about the immense storage of light energy in his body that caused him to manifest his emotions as magic, though he would come to harness it with time. Children didn’t often think about the abnormalities of their world as they experienced it. Practice, knowledge, and experience would eventually lead him to becoming a great and powerful mage, but as he was right then, all he knew was that he’d been on the floor, and now he was suspended in air. The red lines of fate watched with amusement as the tiny human child let his excitement overwhelm him to the point of spilling outside his soul. He flew up, up, up to the ceiling of the banquet hall, right onto the first page of what was bound to be an interesting story.

Of course, the fates were experts on stories.

\---

“Whoa…” Sora breathed as he was lifted far above the celebration, tricked out of gravity’s grasp by his own hypercompetent arcana. “Look at all those people!”

Colors, sounds, and sheer _movement_ surged in crisscrossing patterns below him, delighting Sora into a fit of giggles. He hadn’t been near a group of this size in a very long time. Though his parents visited on a weekly basis, the young prince typically was alone from the time he woke up to the second he drifted off to sleep. Having this much personality around him was refreshing. Then again, Sora could hold a conversation with a rock, which he often _did,_ because there was only so long that he could stand being in dead silence before it’d get boring.

It was a personal mission of his to make at least one new friend today. If he played his cards right, then his friend count would reach an all-time high of… one. That was a start! Definitely better than nothing. But first things first— he needed to figure out how to get down from here. There weren’t a whole lot of ways to make friends while hanging out on the ceiling, or if there were, Sora didn’t know about them, so he was gonna stick with the classics.

The first problem to solve was that his body was still floating upwards. Whenever stuff like this happened in his wing of the castle, all he had to do was reach out to the castle itself, and it would help him. While this was still technically a possibility, Sora had an inkling that it wasn’t going to be as effective over here.

It turned out that the problem solved itself when he was unable to come up with an answer. He landed nicely on the decorative dome that stretched over the second-floor dining area, and from where he was standing, he was able to see both the clusters of tables on the balcony below and the beach outside the dome depending on whether he looked up or down. It was honestly pretty cool! That aside, there didn’t seem to be anyone up here yet who could possibly lend a hand. Sora guessed that they were probably still making their way up the staircase, since it sounded like the music had started back up, having been halted for the grand entrance. He supposed that he could just wait until one of the Royal Mages came up if he was _really_ stuck. But Sora was impatient, so, he’d keep trying until something worked.

A thought occurred to him that made his confidence deflate. Tonight was one of only two nights per year that he was allowed to be around anyone but himself; it looked like he was about to miss the first hour of the banquet if he couldn’t get rid of the magic fast enough. Was it possible for him to miss the whole thing?

Sora entertained the idea for a solemn moment before shaking his head. Thinking positively was the key. Just because it seemed like he was stuck didn’t mean he was going to be there the whole night. Someone would see him eventually, yeah?

Luckily, despite the prince’s hopelessness, the universe had other plans.

Separated from Aqua and Ventus momentarily, Riku had been wandering around on the second-floor landing in search of something to preoccupy himself with when he saw a zero-gravity bubble floating past him up the stairs. He watched it go past, opening and closing his mouth in awe, because the sheer _light_ emanating from it was nearly enough to make him go blind. His senses for magic were going off like a bell as he followed it with a stunned expression.

He had to find out what that was.

While Sora was busy worrying himself, Riku sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time on his way to discover the source of the energy. It permeated through the air around him almost like honey, thick, warm, and sweet. If the bubble wasn’t as small as it was, he’d almost guess that it was Ventus in there. Ven was the only person he knew with light magic anywhere close to what he was sensing from that spell. But somehow, he knew that it couldn’t be Ven, because what he was feeling from it was hundreds of times stronger than anything Riku had ever seen.

His lungs started to strain for oxygen a few yards from the top. All he had to do was get just a bit farther… then finally, he dashed over the last stair, nearly slipping on the polished marble as it slid unsteadily underneath his boots. A pulse of magic shot through Riku’s chest to indicate that the zero-gravity bubble had dispersed. In its place standing upside-down on the ceiling was a confused looking boy with wild cinnamon colored hair.

As for Sora, he was having an interesting time looking for a way to break the magic without falling down the stairwell all the way through to the first floor, completely unaware of Riku watching him and gasping for air. A labored voice echoed off of the walls of the dome that startled the prince into opening his eyes again.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Sora craned his head to see who’d spoken, meeting with a pale, lithe figure and intelligent mint green eyes that were narrowed with a mixture of concern and disbelief.

It looked like… well, he would almost say that the person down there looked like a kid around _his_ age, but that was ridiculous. His fathers had never invited kids to these parties before. Despite himself, a fluttering feeling bubbled up in his chest once he registered this. An _actual_ , potential friend was _right there,_ close enough to talk to! Except Sora was on the ceiling… and this was going to be awkward.

“Umm,” He gulped. Sweat was already gathering thickly in the palms of his hands as he tried to make eye contact, but his rapidly accelerating heart made it difficult to hold it for long. It’s not like his position hanging off of the glass dome was making things any easier, either. He’d had little to no practice at talking to people, _especially_ not to kids, and extra-specially not to unusually pretty kids that had stumbled upon him standing around next to the chandelier. How was he expected to make proper eye contact under these conditions? Sora panicked, and before he could stop himself, blurted out the first thought that popped into his mind.

“You have silver hair!” Came his brilliantly articulated response.

The boy gave a slow blink. Sora had to resist the urge to bash his head into the wall, blush rising to his cheeks as he rushed to correct himself. “I-I mean yes, and also your hair is really cool!”

Said silverette shook his head in surprise, the barest hint of pink tingling at the tips of his ears. He ran one of his hands through the locks absentmindedly. “Thanks, I guess. But seriously— do you need help getting down?”

\---

Riku was nothing short of flabbergasted by the results of his search. There was no mage inside that bubble; apparently, it was another boy, one who had strong evidence pointing to possibly being like _him_. He’d never met someone else with such a large store of magic.

As he’d gotten older and his changeling senses began to develop more (much to Riku’s ignorance, as not being around many actual human children had the unfortunate side-effect of him being unable to compare his sixth sense to the typical five for someone his age and alleged species), his ability to detect magic grew to be very potent. Neither Aqua, who was exceedingly proficient at spellcasting, nor Ventus, who was powerful in his selected element, had ever shown quite the same amount of energy that he felt stirring in the depths of his heart. This kid was absolutely _dripping_ with magic. Even though it was different than Riku’s, he still couldn’t stop himself from wondering if the boy would somehow be able to really _understand_.

But one thing was abundantly clear: Riku would never know if he didn’t attempt to exercise those “social skills” that Ventus was always bugging him about and try to make a friend. So, he got his bearings together and braced himself for whatever was about to happen.

“You’d help me?” The boy answered incredulously, as soon as he’d recovered from his social faux pas. “Thanks, that’s really nice of you!” A glowing smile spread across the kid’s face, causing the deep blue of his eyes to shimmer with a genuine gratefulness, when waves of light spilled out from him at his burst of emotion.

Wow.

If Riku had to find a way to describe the exact feeling of being hit with that much light all at once, he’d say that he felt like his soul was a teacup, with the warm magic filling up his chest, softly lapping at the ceramic edges. Riku felt almost dizzy with the sensation. After a moment of stunned silence, he slapped his arms to snap out of it. There were more important things to worry about. Hopefully the boy would be able to reign in his magic a little, or else it might be difficult for Riku to help him, with all this happiness that wasn’t his own buzzing around inside of his chest and making feel all… cozy, for lack of a better word.

It didn’t look like he’d done it on purpose. The boy was still smiling like the sun, unaware of any effect that it’d had on the changeling.

“Well,” Riku huffed under his breath. “It’s not like I was planning on leaving you here. That’d make me a pretty horrible knight, and seeing that we’re at a knight’s convention, I feel like that would make me doubly bad somehow.” Knights were always supposed to help people in need, regardless of whether or not it convenienced them, or if they’d received orders to do so. Following the knight’s conduct was something that Riku took very seriously. Plus, he wanted to help out anyway, but that’s not something that anyone needed to know.

The words had only barely left Riku’s mouth when the boy jumped up. “You’re a knight? I had no idea!”

Another wave of light rolled over Riku then, at which he sputtered, unused to how his soul felt in contact with it. “…Um. Technically I’m not. Not yet, at least.” He answered. Slightly embarrassed, he brought his hand up to scratch the back of his head, casting his gaze down to the floor. “But my brother is. He just got initiated a few days ago.”

“Oh, tell him congrats!” The boy said sweetly. “You’ll make an awesome knight when you do get chosen, I’m sure of it.”

Geez, this kid was _really_ nice.

Riku hummed, somehow feeling both at ease from the boy’s inviting nature and on edge for the same cause. “So, uh, anyway,” He started after mumbling a shy thank you. “Let’s see what we can do about your gravity problem over here.” The boy nodded in acknowledgement as Riku brought a hand to his chest to begin gathering his own energy.

Several pools of dark magic inside of him answered the call, though they felt as if they were stirring through a wall of some kind, making them more muted and calmer than usual. With an ease that he hadn’t ever been able to summon it forth before, he freed the darkness from the internal cage he kept it in and allowed it to flow freely down his veins. The familiar sensation of falling rain covered the changeling’s skin.

A startled gasp sounded from the boy high above him. Riku guessed he was feeling the waves of darkness for the first time, overwhelming the boy in the same way that it had done for him not moments earlier. This was generally why he kept it under wraps. Most light casters, as Riku came to understand, found the dark to be frightening and chaotic, meaning that they didn’t tend to react very well if he didn’t do something to quell it. He held out just the slightest bit of hope that the same wouldn’t happen here. Riku didn’t fancy the idea of scaring off the other boy, or even worse, accidentally attracting the attention of someone downstairs who thought there might be monsters around. That happened way too much whenever he tried to release his power, and he was honestly just sick of explaining.

“I can only do this once, so be ready!” Riku called. The boy’s face slid into a determined expression, nodding for Riku to continue. “Gravira!”

Mixing light with darkness for a common goal always resulted in one of two things: twilight or daybreak, depending on which type had been cast first. Either of the outcomes created highly charged energy bonds that had unique properties when released. In this case, a twilight spell, Riku successfully exchanged the prince’s rampaging light for his own calm dark, which instantly neutralized the zero-gravity that had been placed on Sora once he used his power to release the bond. Deep, deep inside his chest, Sora felt a pleasantly cool sensation caressing gently at his soul until the constant pulse of his light had dimmed.

The prince’s feet came detached from the glass panel of the dome. “There!” Riku called out, tired, but satisfied with his work. However, there was one more issue that the two of them hadn’t taken into account before attempting the break.

The prince yelped all of a sudden as he entered free fall.

Riku jumped up in alarm. How could he have forgotten the effects _actual_ gravity? He scrambled over to where the boy was about to hit the floor, outstretching his arms to catch him at the very last second possible. Though he was shaking, scared, and crashing from an adrenaline high, it appeared that he was otherwise unharmed. Riku sagged with relief and carefully tightened his grip until he was sure that the boy wouldn’t be dropped.

“I’ve got you, don’t worry.” Riku assured the kid who was now resting bridal style in his arms.

Their proximity did very odd things to his darkness, tangling up with the light from the stranger. He didn’t know what _that_ would do. Was Riku even able to leave his side with both of their energy pools bleeding together like this, or would he just have to deal with taking some of his light on accident?

Ocean blue eyes locked Riku in place, wide and innocent, sparkling with admiration. “That was _awesome._ ” The boy whispered, winded. His voice was still shaky from the fall.

Red flooded the changeling’s cheeks at the praise.

In the following minutes, Riku was able to get the other boy back onto his feet, where he then proceeded to shut down his darkness so no one would come around asking unsolicited questions. A long sigh came from the prince as soon as the last trace of it was locked back up in Riku’s heart.

The sound attracted his attention, looking up, and he gave a curious blink in lieu of asking. “Your magic,” The boy commented. “It’s… gone. _”_

Oh _._ Riku shook his head at the concern, waving it off noncommittally. “Not gone, just hidden.”

“What?"

“I don’t like to keep it out in the open very much.” Riku shrugged. “People say that it hurts to be around me if I do. Speaking of which, I'm sorry if it was painful. I can't really stop it from doing that."

“It didn’t hurt at all!” The boy protested, mouth twisting into a frown. “Maybe light users or whatever you called them are just really dumb. You saved me, so I should be thanking you! I wouldn’t care.” Riku resisted pointing out that, in fact, _he_ was the strongest light user that he’d ever come in contact with, but the sentiment was effective nonetheless. A moment of contemplative silence fell between them until Riku sat up straight. Remembering his manners, he held out a hand.

“There’s no need to thank me. But, if you want, could you maybe tell me your name?” He prompted. “Mine’s Riku. Sometimes my brother calls me Ri. You can use either, I guess.”

The boy gleefully took the hand that was offered to him, holding it reverently, which under most circumstances would make him quite uncomfortable if the palm now clutched to his wasn’t so warm. His hands were always too cold.

“Riku. Like the earth, a strong name for a true hero.” He giggled. “That’s something that my Dad would say. My name isn’t as cool as yours, so, be warned!”

A happy wave of light radiated from the boy. “My name is Sora. Sora Leonheart Strife!”

\---

“Riku!” Ventus yelled, cape flowing behind him as he ran through the dining hall. “Where are you?”

All he’d done was take his eyes off of Riku for just a second. That was it! He thought he’d be able to take a chance and let his guard down, maybe talk to some of the other knights there, enjoy some music or something like that, leaving his little brother to mingle for a bit. The kid loved being alone; he didn’t think it would be that big of an issue if he tried to give it a rest _just this once._

Running next to him and looking quite frustrated was another knight that Ventus had met when he was being introduced to the two major platoons. Spiky locks of raven black hair exploded out from the top of his head, accidentally slipping in the way of his unique golden eyes with every footfall against the dark marble floor. “Wherever this little shit is, he better be ready to get his ass handed to him for managing to get lost with so many damn people around here.” He grunted.

Ventus whirled around to snap at him. “Profanity!”

“Fuck you.” The knight barked in return. “I’m helping you look for the kid, ergo I get cursing privileges, _Venty-Wenty.”_

A suffering sigh forced its way out of his throat. It wasn’t worth the argument. Realistically Ventus knew that Vanitas wasn’t going to stop anyway, and there were much more pressing matters to attend to before washing his superior’s mouth out with soap. “ _Fine._ But not around Riku.”

“Whatever.” Vanitas scoffed, dragging Ventus into a sharp turn. “He’s probably off having the time of his life, gorging himself on cake or some shit. This place is crawling with palace guards, you know. I’m sure that about a hundred people would jump up to help if they saw a literal child being maimed next to the punch bowl. Is this really necessary?” Ventus called out for Riku a few more times, then turned to the other knight, slapping him sharply on the shoulder.

Necessary? Of course this was necessary. Ever since Riku had been kidnapped that night several years ago, Ventus had never been able to rest easy when his little brother was with him in a crowd. He’d made the mistake of lowering his vigilance, and now he could be hurt, or much, much worse.

“It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been kidnapped!” The servant retorted angrily. Clanking metal sounded between them as they began to ascend the long flight of stairs to the second floor. Their swords were strapped to opposite sides, meeting in the middle whenever they took a particularly imprecise step. “And may I remind you that the prince himself was taken by the same woman, on the very same day, no less. She’s out for Riku. I’m not going to let her get the upper hand again.”

Vanitas huffed, but didn’t try to protest any further.

They stomped up the endless staircase with vigor, not faltering even as they approached the landing in between floors, which is where most people would stop to rest when they were walking. The two knights were doing their best to run up these stairs, so by all accounts they should’ve been exhausted. Ventus was proud of his ability to keep up despite his pitiful lack of athletic training. Compared to the captain of his platoon, what sword training he’d had with Aqua was probably trivial.

The training regimen that the captain had been through was brutal. It showed in how he moved, with all the grace and confidence of someone who’d been put through hell and back to receive the position that he now proudly upheld, golden crown pin fastened tightly to the front of his cape as a token of his accomplishments and status. True to the stereotypical knight, Vanitas had a stocky figure, toned arms and legs, and while it was difficult to tell if he actually had abs or if it was just the weird contour of his muscle suit, Ventus knew that there was more than enough strength held in the man’s limbs to keep at this hike for hours. The one and only reason why he was complaining was because he was a _massive bitch._ But if anyone asked, they didn’t hear it from Ventus.

“Look, blondie.” Vanitas spoke, pulling the servant out of his thoughts. “I get wanting to protect your little brother. Sora’s a pretty big fuckin’ handful on my side too. But—” Their conversation was cut off by Ventus yelling Riku’s name again. “Listen to me!”

Since Vanitas was his superior, he had no choice but to shut up in surrender to the command. “There are consequences to being overbearing. My cousin, _your prince_ , would know more than anybody.” The man continued. “If Riku isn’t in danger when we find him, it’d be best for you to leave him alone. Let him fuck around and be a kid for ten minutes.”

It took everything that Ventus had not to fire back, but in his mind, a calmer, more meditative voice that sounded an awful lot like Aqua took precedence, telling him to find the wisdom in his statement. Vanitas wasn’t given his title for no reason. His mother had always told him that there was knowledge to be gained from every source, and anger was just another one of those sources, one that he could only benefit from with the hindsight of a clear mind.

A deep breath later, then another, then one more, and he felt the anger drain out of him.

“I’ll take your advice into account, captain.” Ventus conceded. “But please don’t stop me from checking on him. I need it for my own peace of mind.”

A thin black eyebrow arched in surprise was what Vanitas gave in response. He seemed almost impressed by the other’s self-control, declining the opportunity to make fun of Ventus by instead averting his gaze elsewhere as they continued their trek. “Knock yourself out.”

For the next few minutes, the only sounds exchanged between them were heavy breaths and loud footsteps up the stairs, until Vanitas made a very abrupt stop to gape up at the ceiling, grabbing out at the black sleeve of the servant’s jacket to slow him down as well.

Ventus tried to struggle away from the captain’s grip, though it was a futile effort. The man didn’t even notice. He was busy squinting suspiciously at the glass dome high above them.

“Motherfucker… standing on the gods-forsaken ceiling…”

Ventus blinked. “Uh, pardon?”

“Some bitch is standing on the fucking ceiling.” Vanitas answered, quite unhelpfully. “I couldn’t tell you who, though. My vision is shit during sunlight hours.”

That couldn’t be good. Ventus joined him in looking above, though to Vanitas’ credit, it actually was pretty difficult to make out the details of the person up there through both the distance and the reddish light of Destiny Castle’s signature sunset. There wasn’t much of a doubt that it was a person up there. They seemed to be engaged in a conversation with someone on the second floor, if he had to guess based on their extravagant hand gesturing.

“We should probably go check that out once we get upstairs.” He commented, causing Vanitas to roll his eyes.

“Actually, I’d been planning on forgetting about it entirely, maybe going back down to the first floor to grab some grapes and hedonistically feed myself on a silk couch instead of facing my responsibilities.” Before Ventus could properly retort, the captain threw his hands in the air, shouting “No shit!”

Now it was Ventus’ turn to roll his eyes. If they kept at their back-and-forth, the two of them would be here all night. He needed to find Riku, just to see if he was okay, and otherwise he figured that Captain Vanitas would force him to help with whatever mess was going on up there, so his evening looked like it was relatively booked. There wasn’t time for this. He finally managed to yank his arm away, so as soon as he’d patted down everything (not really because of any dirt, but because it was a habit from dusting various rooms in the castle), Ventus kicked off running again with his grumpy captain in tow.

\---

Riku swore that he’d never felt the blood drain out of him faster.

Not when he was caught reading past his bedtime, not when he almost fell of the roof while cleaning with Aqua, not even the time that he knocked over a vase in the king’s bedroom. When he said never, he meant never.

“You’re the- Are you telling me that you’re the _prince?”_ The changeling child exclaimed, vision spinning.

Dizziness wasted no time setting in on his head as he came to the painful realization that he’d very nearly dropped the _crown prince of the Destiny Islands_ down a staircase due to bad spell management, assuming that who he claimed to be was the truth. Riku had never expected his first meeting with the prince to go quite like _this_. What about the knight code? Was he supposed to kneel like the code says, or was it already too late? Would Sora find him rude if he didn’t? He was struck by the desire to crawl onto Aqua’s lap, bury his face in her dress, and hide until she carried him home at the end of the banquet.

Sora, ignorant of Riku’s panic, flashed a grin. He wasn’t paying much attention to the changeling’s face at the moment. Instead, he’d been busy turning Riku’s palm over in his hand, running a thumb over it like he hadn’t ever shaken someone’s hand before and had no idea what to do with it despite his obvious enthusiasm. “That’s me!”

His bright smile faltered a little when he finally did look up. Though his hand was still puzzling over what to do with Riku’s own, settling momentarily on holding it gently, his attention shifted to the changeling in front of him. There was a shadow in his eyes that made him pause. Sora saw the building fear beneath them, breath catching in his throat as his mind raced to draw conclusions.

“Is that okay?” He asked softly.

Riku had been dreaming of this moment for as long as he could remember, but he could already feel it slipping away from him with every anxious breath that he took. There had to be some way to let the prince know how ‘okay’ it was. He’d been wanting to meet the prince since _forever_ , to talk to him about becoming his knight, see what kind of a person he was, and really help him, as someone he knew was in need. If Riku could just force himself to think again… but his mind was unable to do anything but spiral downward with the new information.

Now that Riku had the new context, he was able to see all the things that he’d missed before through the lens of ignorance. The prince looked a lot like he did in the paintings that were hung of him in the main hall. His fluffy brown hair, tan skin, and smattering of sunny freckles all spoke to that likeness, though he had to say that no artistic medium so far had been able to hold a candle to the real thing. Unlike the paintings, there wasn’t any crown nestled in his hair that Riku could see, though his ears were pierced with tiny silver pieces shaped like the Destiny Island’s crown insignia.

It was a mystery how he didn’t realize sooner. Nobody else but the kings had paintings of themselves hanging around, so it’s not like Riku had the excuse of quantity on his side when it came to not recognizing his future liege.

The changeling boy mumbled, ducking his head in a customary bow after some deliberation of how to proceed. “Sor- uh, Your Highness, please forgive me for not answering. I need a minute to think of the right thing to say.”

Sora had visibly relaxed at Riku’s request. Seemingly, he didn’t mind too much about the wait, just returning that ever-enduring smile to its natural place upon his features. A simmering wave of light passed through Riku where they stood as it worked to manifest the prince’s relief. It was okay this time— he was starting to get used to it. The warmth did nothing but coax at the darkness encasing his chest which had made it so difficult to speak, prying the tendrils off of him one by one until he felt like he could breathe properly again.

“I didn’t mean to sound like I thought it was a bad thing.” Riku assured. “It’s just that… I never expected that I’d be meeting the prince before I was knighted. I thought that I might catch a glimpse of you if I was lucky, but this is,” He let out a shaky exhale. “unprecedented.”

“Unprecedented? What does that mean?” Sora asked, closing his eyes to think if he’d heard the word somewhere before.

_Oh_. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. Sometimes Riku’s habit of browsing through the castle libraries could make him sound a tad too stiff, or at least that’s what Ven told him. For all he knew, Sora might not be able to read yet anyway, since he was a year younger and all. It would be more polite to use simpler words. “It means not normal.”

“Ah.” The prince nodded, as though he’d been bestowed with great knowledge. “Well, in that case, you really shouldn’t worry; this isn’t normal for me either. You’re the first person I’ve talked to in…” He brought up his free hand, then counted the fingers for a few moments. “Six months. Aside from my dads, obviously!”

Riku’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yep.” Sora responded, popping the p. “I don’t get out of my room very much.”

The two of them decided to find a place to sit once the first few people began appearing on the upper floor. They couldn’t stand by the balcony or else Sora would be recognized by some of the partygoers here and be swept away for questioning. Usually it wouldn’t bother him, since he got to talk to people so infrequently, but he didn’t want to waste his first real opportunity to make a friend. Besides, it’d be rude to cut Riku off like that after he saved him.

There was a nice bench overlooking the ocean at the north end of the room that Sora dragged the boy over to by the hand. Soft velvet pillows embroidered with the golden crown, his parents’ version of the insignia, cushioned the bench, which he gleefully jumped on. Riku saw Sora patting the seat next to him, then hesitantly climbed up to take it, where they leaned back to look up at the beautiful golden-red sky. Full of surprises as always, the prince reached to intertwine their fingers again as soon as they were settled.

“So…” Sora started. Immediately following the words was a small, tingly pulse of light that carried a hint of curiosity with it. “tell me about yourself. I’ve been looking forward to hearing some good stories today.”

The clammy feeling in Riku’s chest was easing little by little. He thought that maybe, _maybe_ he’d be able to comply. A direct order from the prince, after all, was something that he couldn’t ignore if he wanted to be taken seriously as a knight one day.

Eyes closed, legs crossed, Riku launched into a rambling explanation of anything he could think of that was remotely interesting. This delighted the prince into propping his head up on one elbow and shifting around to get comfortable for a long sitting. Sora was an oddly attentive listener, making noises of interest at the appropriate times, giggling at parts he considered funny, and asking a question here and there or providing his own personal anecdote. Light periodically fell off of the prince with the twists and turns of his emotions at Riku’s words. It helped him feel even better the longer that they talked; his anxiety slowly ebbed away with its blanketing warmth until he forgot that he was talking to a member of the royal family at all.

He fell into a weird kind of trance where time didn’t exist. Though the sun dipped lower and lower on the horizon, Riku didn’t realize that this held any kind of significance whatsoever, as he was too busy trading stories and jokes with this kid that he’d met. The changeling boy didn’t really want to get out of it, either. Sitting around with someone like this was a lot more fun than he’d been expecting.

Only when the strongest ruby reds began stretching through the thin sliver of the horizon line did he realize that they’d been talking for… what, over an hour now?

He paused in the middle of a sentence he didn’t remember starting, causing Sora to hum questioningly. The prince had been fiddling with their connected hands, marveling almost, which gave Riku the sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t exaggerating about not being around people too often. It would be enough to make him self-conscious if it was anyone else. But Prince Sora could get away with _anything_ if he wanted to. Those puppy eyes were far too powerful for the likes of mere mortals.

Sora put them to good use, pouting about the sudden silence. “Hey, why’d you stop?”

_Hm? Oh, yeah._

“I really shouldn’t have kept you here for so long.” The changeling boy answered. “There are probably a lot of other things that you wanted to do tonight.”

That was a polite way of saying that Sora most likely had royal duties to take care of, such as welcoming important guests and talking to the guard staff. It was kind of unconventional for the prince to be spending his time with someone of such low status already. The last thing that Riku would want was for Sora to get in trouble because of him.

The prince tilted his head, scrunching up his face in thought. “Well, no, not really. This is everything that I was planning to do, unless my dads want me for something later… but I don’t care about that very much.” A few seconds later, he groaned, saying, “Ugh. Maybe I should check just in case.”

He looked pleadingly up at Riku, who only squinted at the prince, unsure of what he wanted. A mischievous finger poked at Riku’s belly when he received no reply for a good few minutes. Unfortunately ticklish, the changeling suppressed a yelp.

“Can you at least finish your story before I go ask?” Sora drawled in a sweet, melodic voice. What a cheap trick— he was using his cuteness to his advantage. Even worse still was that it worked. Riku had very little experience fighting off cuteness as a battle strategy. Without knowledge of a proper defense, all he could do was try to think back on the last thing he’d said to the amusement of the snickering victor.

“Okay, fine. Would you please remind me what I was telling you about?” He grumbled.

The prince happily pumped his fist in the air. “Alright! You were saying something about your favorite swords. Keep going, keep going!”

It made Riku happy that the prince was enjoying his rants about weaponry. Most of his fun facts and passionate tirades were lost on Aqua and Ventus by now, both of them having heard them too many times to spare more than a passing glance when he got on a roll.

“Yeah, I remember now. So there’s this really cool sword called Braveheart…”

\---

Sora never did end up leaving to ask his parents about what he was supposed to be doing that night. He and Riku continued to sit at their bench until long, long after the sun went down, talking and playing together as children do, losing track of time in the wake of something better.

Ventus watched them from the edge of the room as Vanitas hauled his smug hand to sit on the servant’s shoulder. “What’d I tell you? The kid’s fine.”

Ventus couldn’t think of the last time he’d seen Riku be that vocal with a stranger. Usually he was quite wary around people he didn’t know, oftentimes retreating to a small corner to hide, or if he was unable to leave, stand quietly behind him and Aqua until the person was gone. The reservations that followed him around seemed to be muted during his talk with the young prince. Riku was gesturing wildly as he spoke, smiling, and the prince was following him on a similar note with hearty laughter.

“I guess so.” He responded, not really sure how to feel.

Obviously he was happy for his little brother. Aqua and Ven had both been trying to get him to socialize more for a long time, so it was good that Riku had gotten the message, put himself out there a little more. They’d both been worried about how he didn’t have any friends even by his age. But something inside of Ventus was feeling melancholy, and he couldn’t really pinpoint why.

Vanitas steered him away from the scene. He figured that they needed to get a hold of that whole “person standing on the ceiling” fiasco before it turned into something big, but instead of looking around to investigate, they ended up standing right in front of the giant buffet tables that had only just been set up with appetizers.

Confusion shot through him as he watched Vanitas rub his hands together and grab a plate. “Uh, Captain?” The man looked up, annoyed at being interrupted. “Shouldn’t we be checking out the dome now?” A small pause occurred. After a second, Vanitas just stuffed his face with quiches, swallowing them down like a madman as he used his free hand to offer a plate to Ventus. Well, that cleared up absolutely nothing. Ventus hesitantly took the dish from his captain’s grip before it’d get smashed in his weird consumption frenzy.

Vanitas smacked his jaws together once he was done with the food. “Don’t need to. I know who was up there.”

“ _What?”_

If he knew, then why did he even bother to make a big deal out of it? Who _was_ standing on the ceiling, and why were they able to get away with that without questioning?

The captain shrugged, acting like the answers to all of Ventus’ questions were dangling right in front of his nose, if only he’d pay attention enough to see it. It was nearly enough to make him see red. “Aren’t you going to tell me who it was?” Ventus demanded.

“Think about it. Who’s the one person known to be capable of magic like that, can’t control it very well, and is currently present in our general vicinity, but back on the ground?” With those parameters, he was even less sure of who it could possibly be. Way to be _vague_. Flicking Ventus in the forehead, he barked through another bite of quiche, “It was Sora, you massive dolt.”

Prince Sora… so the rumors about him really were true.

He heard from a random passerby a while ago about how the prince’s wing of the castle had gained a kind of sentience of its own. Apparently it could only be navigated by the child himself, because anyone who’d attempted to enter it besides the prince had gotten hopelessly lost, wandering out somewhere in the castle gardens anywhere from a few days later to a month. They say that it got like that because the prince had some super strong magic that he couldn’t control due to his young age. Ventus had mostly discounted the rumors, but here Vanitas was, implying that it really was so, and if anyone knew besides the kings, it would be him.

Doing an anti-gravity spell at the ripe old age of four. Ventus did not envy the Leonheart-Strife parents, trying to herd a child that powerful through the motions of palace life.

“Okay, so you figured it out. I still think we should go check on them, see if they’re alright, _especially_ since it was His Highness who’d been in danger.” The servant prompted, vehemently ignoring Vanitas’ horrible eating habits only a few inches away.

Sharp golden eyes bored into Ventus’ as his captain gulped down a glass of apple cider that had been set out on the buffet counter. “You’re not getting it.”

“What is there to get?” He argued, pissed off by Vanitas’ lack of clarity in his statements.

“It’s what I’ve been trying to hammer into your head this whole time, dumbass. Riku doesn’t need you hovering around him right now. Would you read the air? _Feel_ the magic working right around you?” The man snapped in return. “If you’d bothered to check the magic fields for more than a second, then you would understand what I’m saying. Those two are surrounded on all sides by red cords. Breaking them isn’t worth the time, energy, or the blood curse that would result of trying to pull your little brother back in to your protective, waiting arms _._ ” He mocked.

Ventus’ mind raced at the words. This must’ve been why Vanitas of all people was selected to be captain of the guard; someone who could see the cords so easily was not only rare, but infinitely valuable to the palace.

He shook his head. Maybe the lines of fate were right, but Ventus wasn’t ready to give in without giving his captain hell for it. “Riku is too young to be taken by the fates. We can’t just let him stay there by himself if we know that something might happen!”

A cold, shivery feeling rolled over Ventus’ skin, and when he looked up, he saw that Vanitas was standing with his hand casually resting on the sword by his belt.

“Shut up.”

His voice was too calm. Ventus gulped, withdrawing as swathes of darkness began to grab at his skin. It didn’t hurt yet— but he knew that could change at the captain’s smallest whim.

“The will of the universe can’t be broken by mortals. Trying to throw it off will kill you, if not now, then later. _Gruesomely._ Free life lesson for my dear little subordinate: if you ever want to be successful as a strategist, you have to know where your loyalties lie. I’m smart. Mine lie with whatever keeps reality from cracking in half. Learn where yours are.” The darkness retreated so fast that Ventus was left reeling. “That being said, I’m hungry, so let’s eat.”

He shuddered. Darkness would always make Ventus nervous.


	5. Strength to Protect What Matters

Bells chimed loudly in the high towers to signal the hour, as they did every day without fail, ringing into the night with twelve long tones at the stroke of midnight.

The air was calm and still, a stark contrast from the energy of all the people inside the Destiny Castle, who felt lively from the arrival of the main course. All of the knights in attendance were seated around long tables with enormous mugs of mead at the edges of their plates. Next to each place setting sat huge stacks of sweets as far as the eye could see, up for grabs if they did so desire.

The changeling boy could barely stop himself from salivating at the sight of so many cookies and cakes right within his reach.

They looked absolutely delicious, and though Riku was unlikely to take more than a few for himself, he wanted to see how many he could get away with stealing for the prince. Rows of coconut cakes (which Prince Sora had claimed to be his favorite) were laid out, just _waiting_ to be taken by the hungry children, both of whom were watching carefully from under a table and planning their heist.

Sora was entirely consumed in his work of checking for the coast to be clear. He was crouched excitedly by the table cloth, lifting it up every few seconds to see when they would be ready to sprint to the goal. Riku, meanwhile, was mostly just anxious to finish this up so they could get back to the bench before someone took it.

Well… that, and he really wanted to try one of those coconut cakes. The prince must have hyped them up so much for a reason, right?

Regardless, Riku had his reasons for wanting to get back to talking. It was nice to take a little break to get something to eat- he wasn’t about to let his prince go hungry because of impatience- but there was something that he wished to bring up with Sora sometime before the banquet ended.

Another opportunity like this one was not guaranteed to present itself. If possible, Riku would prefer to utilize time properly by getting his question out of the way now.

As the night had gone on, Riku had gotten closer and closer to asking Sora about what he had come here for in the first place, which was to inquire about becoming the prince’s official knight and protector. More realistically, he wanted to begin training for that position, but the general idea was still the same. It was becoming clear to him the more time that he spent with the prince that being his knight was what he wanted to do.

Prince Sora was a very kind soul, sweet, caring, and funny, and he was the only person Riku’d ever met who didn’t mind putting up with his sword obsession. It'd be fun to be around him more often, especially once he was allowed to carry a sword with him. He wondered if the prince would be up for sparring.

He was swept up in balmy visions of himself wearing the silver crown pin, the symbol of his service to the prince, as he confidently plowed through tides of monsters, giant sword in hand, the prince fighting on his other side. The dream was far off from being reality yet. But if Riku played his cards right, then maybe tonight he’d get a step closer.

That didn’t stop him from being incredibly nervous about asking, though. The changeling felt like his heart was fit to beat right out of his chest.

“Riku!” Sora called, shaking the other boy’s shoulder.

He jumped out of his daydreams with a hard thump from his heart against his ribcage. “Yes, Your Highness?” In his nervousness, he’d almost forgotten that they were just about to steal their own bodyweight in coconut cake. Whoops.

Riku snapped back to attention right as Sora made eye contact with him, swiftly moving his hands through a series of signs that he recognized as DISL, flashing out the message, _No one’s looking. Get ready to run._

It’d been a while since Riku had last needed to use this form of communication, but all children in the Destiny Islands were required to learn some in case of an emergency. The proper answer came back to him relatively quickly. He brought a fist up next to his head, flipping his pointer finger up to say _I understand._ Riku stifled a giggle at how serious he was taking this, but readied himself next to the prince anyway, climbing up to a low crouch with his legs primed to sprint. The prince brought his mouth close to Riku’s ear, whispering “Three, two, one… let’s go!”

And so the two of them ran out into the light of the ballroom.

They returned to their seats around ten minutes later, each carrying three to four slices of cake, a plate of cookies, a cup of punch, some small bowls of poi, and various unidentified appetizer dishes.

Sora dragged a nearby tea table in front of their bench as best as he could with only his foot free. The dishes balanced on each of his arms wobbled, threatening to fall until Riku set his plates down in time to take the fragile china from the prince’s grasp.

It wasn’t long before Riku and Sora were able to sit down with their stolen feast, ready to dig in. “Oh, this all looks so good, I can’t wait to try some!” The prince exclaimed, as he beamed at his partner in crime.

“Yeah,” Riku agreed, already shoveling some of what seemed to be stuffed mushrooms into his mouth with reckless abandon. “I didn’t even realize how hungry I was until right now.”

Armed with enough food to feed a small village, the two were set to basically be lazy for the rest of the evening, for better or worse. No more interruptions should pop up from here on out unless they got really unlucky. It was already midnight. From what Riku remembered, the banquet was supposed to go until about two o’clock in the morning, three if things were going slowly, but he doubted that would be a problem. None of the troops had started any drunken fights, and Sora hadn’t had any issues with his magic since the incident at the beginning of the banquet. Everything was going about as smoothly as they possibly could be. That only meant one thing: Riku was out of excuses to be staying silent.

He slowed down, chewing a little bit more thoughtfully. Maybe he wasn’t ready to ask yet. Would it really be so bad if he waited, enjoying his time with Sora, instead of worrying himself into a corner? It’s not like he was old enough to be knight yet anyway. Aqua might have been right to turn him down…

But when would he get another chance like this?

If Riku _didn’t_ act, then he might not ever meet the prince again. Who knows if they’d get to see each other after tonight, or at any of the other banquets in years to come— The kings might assign him a knight by then, and if Riku wasn’t in the running to be one, someone else would get the job. He didn’t want to sacrifice his ambitions for the future because he was too scared to ask a simple question. The absolute worst thing that could happen would be that Sora said no.

Okay, while that was still a pretty bad outcome, it wasn’t like execution or anything. It’d be horribly embarrassing, but little else.

Sora tapped lightly on the changeling’s shoulder, causing him to look up. “I was totally right! The coconut cake tastes just as good as I remember. Here, see?” The prince held up a forkful, bringing it on level with Riku’s mouth for him to sample.

It’d be impolite to turn down an offer like that. A little sheepish about the idea of being fed, he took the fork from Sora’s hand, placing the sugary confection on his tongue as the boy watched for his reaction with clear anticipation.

“Hmm.” He remarked. “It’s really sweet.”

“Duh, it’s cake.” The prince chuckled, a wave of light teasing Riku at the sound. “You gotta taste the new-hances.”

“I think you mean nuances.”

Sora put his hands behind his head, leaning back with a stupid grin highlighting his features. “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

At least Riku’s internal debate about what to do was solved; he couldn’t _not_ become this idiot’s knight.

The changeling focused harder on the taste so he could give a more satisfying answer, fighting to keep a fond smile off of his face. There were a few different layers to it, some more obvious, such as the coconut shavings and flavoring throughout the batter and frosting, but there was a hint of something fruitier that he couldn’t quite put his finger on deeper down.

“In any case, you’re right, the cake _is_ pretty good.” He admitted. Sora had only barely begun to celebrate when suddenly he was startled by Riku coughing and sputtering. “Why’s there a leaf in here?”

Sora jumped up and down, squealing with happiness. “You got the paopu leaf! You know, like those star-shaped fruits that grow on the trees outside?”

A paopu fruit. Those were the Destiny Islands' biggest export, if he remembered correctly. They were really popular during the summer because they made for refreshing drinks, and during other seasons, they were often bought out by healers for their medicinal properties. Not that any of that was relevant. Riku knew way too much about this kind of stuff for it to possibly be entertaining, so Riku played dumb, pretending not to know what he meant. 

Sora launched into a short description of their appearance, then continued on his previous story. “My parents know that they’re my favorites, but I don’t get to have it very much because it isn’t always in season during the knight’s banquets. So, they started freezing it to put in the cake for me! Papa told me that he asked his chef to leave the leaf in just to see who’d get it.”

So that was where the fruity flavor came from. Admittedly, Riku had never tried a paopu before, but the taste definitely measured up to the rumors about its legendary sweetness. The leaf itself wasn’t much to behold though. He spit it out, intending to keep eating the slice, but much to the disappointment of his taste buds, Sora grabbed his arm to halt his movements before he could.

“Hold on. You should make a wish first!” The prince exclaimed. 

Riku averted his gaze to the floor, as it was all he could do to conceal the way his heart stuttered with mild panic. A wish? Truth be told, there weren’t a whole lot of things that Riku would wish for except for one, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to wish for it yet. He needed a few more minutes in the safe zone.

“What do you think I should wish for?” He copped out with, ashamed of his own cowardice.

The prince flopped down onto his seat again. Instead of taking his plate back from Riku, he grabbed one of the other slices from the table and shoved a few bites into his mouth.

“Hmm… I don’t know.”

A silence that was pretty rare around Sora, at least, from what Riku’d seen so far, fell between them as the two looked beyond the glass dome into the black swirling waters of the ocean far beneath them. Moonlight reflected off the surface in wavy patterns against the cliffsides, reminiscent to Riku of the way that Sora’s magic shimmered around him like a sparkling veil.

“Tell you what _I’d_ wish for,” The prince started. “A reaaaaally big bed, so I can have sleepovers with a ton of friends all at once.”

He wasn’t sure what he’d thought the prince would say, but it certainly wasn’t that. Riku laughed. “I don’t have enough friends for something like that, Your Highness.”

“Me neither. But it’d be good to have it anyway, just in case. How embarrassing would it be if I actually did get some friends, and my bed wasn’t big enough for them all to share with me? Someone would need to sleep on the floor,” The prince explained, shaking his head in disapproval. “they’d be lonely down there.”

_That isn’t fair._ Riku thought unbiddenly. _Someone as bright as Sora should have a lot of people who care about him._

His breathing fell in time with the gentle tide as at collided with the rock beneath the castle. It was such a peaceful night beyond the palace walls that the sight started to lull Riku into a trance, calming him until he was able to come up with a proper response.

“Well, if I could wish for anything, I think I’d like to grow up to be like my brother, Ventus.” The changeling boy said quietly. “And like my mom before him. She’s not a warrior anymore, but I still would love to carry on her legacy, er- I mean, her work. She used to be a general before she adopted Ven.” Sora motioned for him to continue, laying down on his tummy and resting his head on folded arms. “Though being a general isn’t exactly what I was going for.”

One of the prince’s dark eyebrows arched, as if to ask, _why not?_

It was now or never. Debating with himself about if or when to ask wouldn’t give him any results at all, positive or negative, so he might as well get it over with while he had the prince’s attention.

Heart beating fast, Riku expanded on his earlier comment. “I don’t think I’d be good in the army. Mom told me that the main platoons mostly guard the castle or the mainland borders, and I don’t really care about that kind of stuff. But she took me to meet your parents’ guard a long time ago, Yuffie Kisaragi, right?" Sora nodded in confirmation.

"She told me all about what her job is, how she does it and all, though what really got to me was _why_ she decided to take it. She said that she did it because King Leon is her best friend, and she wanted to protect him, no matter the cost. I want to do that one day. To be so special to someone that I can spend my life keeping them safe.” Riku locked eyes with the prince. “So, I think that’s what I’ll wish for. Strength to protect what matters.”

A dreamy sigh came from Sora’s mouth as he sank further down on the bench cushions, giving him a few slow blinks, like he was trying to stay awake. “That wish is a lot better than mine.” He said sleepily.

“Don’t say that, yours was pretty good too.”

It didn’t look like the prince understood what he’d been trying to imply… which meant that he might have to actually come out and _say_ it, like, _out loud,_ a prospect that scared him more than anything.

“I mean, who would waste their wish on a job? Only me. Just— ever since my brother told me about how you're not allowed to leave the living castle, I've always wanted to be that for you. Eh, I mean, not that I expected you to care about me, necessarily… I just wanted to help. You're really fun to be around, you know. It'd be cool to protect you when I get older, because I'd be able to keep you company and stuff, _and_ I'd get a sword out of it.”

There it was. Make it or break it, the moment that he’d been waiting for since he first set sight on the shiny steel of his mother’s blade clashing with Ventus’ in the silence of the night. It took a minute for Sora to process what’d been said. He climbed off of his stomach to sit on his knees, looking Riku in the eyes like he couldn’t believe what he heard.

The changeling was flushed head to toe with the effort of keeping still instead of bolting behind the nearest curtain to hide for the rest of forever.

“You want to be my knight?” He tried to clarify. Riku nodded.

Vivid, stunning blue met Riku’s icy teal, shining with joy and swimming with a layer of moisture. “You mean- you’d be willing to spend time with me,” he said, voice wavering with emotion. "Like, for real?"

"Well, yeah. You're pretty nice." He answered. 

Sora nearly knocked him over in his haste to throw his arms around Riku’s shoulders. “That’s not a proper wish,” He sniffed. “All you did was grant one of mine.”

He awkwardly maneuvered his arms around the prince’s back to comfort him. Hugging had never exactly been one of his strong suits, despite how much Aqua and Ventus loved to pull him into one whenever they felt like it. So much affection focused on him made him feel weird, almost wrong, like he was never meant to encounter a feeling so warm and comfortable without something being horribly amiss. Luckily, a much larger part of Riku wanted to melt into it and never let go.

“Too late. No takebacks.”

And, well, Sora couldn’t argue with that. There were no takebacks when it came to wishing on things. 

\---

But as they say, all good things come to an end.

The banquet finished right on schedule and the knights in attendance had to bid their adieus, exchanging promises to send letters or meet up at later dates, the majority of which were empty promises. No one would hold them at their word after two o’clock in the morning. Groups of people left in drowsy clusters, stumbling their way out to their various chambers on either end of the palace.

Both kings were relieved to be heading back to their quarters after such a long night. Sleepy son thrown over Cloud’s shoulder and with Yuffie following closely behind, Squall couldn’t wait to crawl under the covers and knock out as soon as physically possible once they’d safely returned Sora to his bedroom.

The boy had been oddly compliant when they came to retrieve him. He’d been slumped over, fast asleep against a child he recognized as General Aqua’s youngest, who looked very close to unconsciousness as well, though not so much that he didn’t attempt to bow his head as they approached. Sora had only stirred long enough to wave goodbye to the other child before Cloud hoisted him up to leave. Neither of the kings had anticipated him to go so easily, but hey, they weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Walking Sora to his branch of the castle didn’t take too long. It was at the very back of the castle, the farthest away from visitors and staff that he could possibly be, but it was close enough to the throne room that they could encourage its magic to take them in from there. A door appeared behind their thrones that they knew would lead to Sora’s playrooms after only a few minutes of glaring tiredly at the wall. Upon being let in, the adults broke into a jog through the poorly-lit corridors. They didn’t want to linger too long while their escort was present, as she was likely to get lost in the ever-changing halls if she stayed more than a few minutes. The three of them moved quickly through the prince’s chambers until they found the only room that never moved.

His bedroom was in the same spot that it always was, sitting at the back of an elevated walkway that bordered each of the walls. There were two torches bolted to the stone next to the entrance that burned a mystifying blue and casted the dark, carved wood of Sora’s door in ghastly light. The doors opened on their own when they drew close.

Squall lit a small fire in his hand to see by as they entered the room. Usually it would be easier to see; Sora tended to fill his room with beautiful glowing crystals when it got too dark out, but as he hadn’t been there for the evening, it’d remained in its daytime state without him there to change it. In the center of the room was a large four-post canopy bed nestled nicely between two star-shaped windows. They heard the sound of sheets rustling for a moment, then as Squall lifted the light to check the movement, it fell upon an old, fluffy black Saint Bernard that wagged his tail at the sight of Sora tucked away in his father’s arms. Sleeping on top of the dog was the prince’s other pet, a pristine white duck that had its bill buried in the feathers of its back. Cloud urged for them to make room so he could lay his son down in their place.

The dog lumbered to a standing position, which angered the duck, until it set sight on the prince as his parents gently put him down on the bed. Cloud and Squall took a moment to remove Sora’s dress clothes, leaving him in his tank top and shorts instead of trying to wrestle the child into pajamas, then reached for the blanket to pull over him.

The ruffled-looking duck waddled next to him and promptly fell asleep. Sora’s Saint Bernard rested his giant head on their son’s chest, which slightly to the exhausted parents’ annoyance, woke him up.

“Goofy…” He mumbled. “I didn’t think you’d be here tonight. Didn’t Mr. Mickey need you for something?” The dog gave a deep woof.

Cloud sighed, rubbing his temples. “You can ask him in the morning, Sora.”

The boy hummed sleepily as he wrapped his arms around Goofy. He was all but lost under the immense pile of fur, looking much smaller than he actually was in comparison. It made the kings’ hearts ache to see him curled up there, so tiny, so little against the backdrop of his huge dog, huge bed, huge room, and huge castle. “Maybe I can introduce you ‘n Donald to my new friend tomorrow. You’ll like him, I just know it.”

“You made a friend.” Squall prompted, even though he knew that Sora had been talking to his dog. Their son smiled at the words.

“Yeah… his name is Riku.” Sora yawned. “He has pretty hair and green eyes.”

That was the last thing that he said before falling asleep again with an air of finality.

The two parents exchanged a concerned look. Squall turned, lighting a candle by the door so that Sora wouldn’t be in complete darkness should he wake before daylight, and with that, the trio made their exit.

About twenty minutes passed without either saying anything, but Squall cracked, unable to rest his thoughts. “We knew we wouldn’t be able to prevent that from happening forever.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” Cloud responded listlessly.

“Should we do anything about it?”

The king remembered his son’s words from earlier that evening, the phrase echoing again and again as he felt the weight of his guilt creeping up his spine.

“No.”

\---

The next few days saw many changes for the young prince that were unexpected as much as they were welcome.

Firstly, it was uncommon for Sora to see his parents so soon after a visit. His fathers couldn’t chance going through the magic barriers very often, because even though they were less affected, the two of them were still subject to the confusion spells that caused intruders to get lost. They’d learned firsthand that a kingdom missing its leaders was not a very pretty sight.

Telling him why they couldn’t always be there was only somewhat successful on good days; bad days ended with their son crying at their retreating figures, begging them to stay when they _knew_ that they wouldn’t be able to. Those were the days that hurt the worst for all of them. King Strife and King Leon had no desire to repeat the incident, though, with their responsibilities, it happened far more than it ever should.

That was why they’d decided to break the rule today. Only once, not for long, just so they could try to make up for some of the pain by relaxing the restrictions on visitors.

In order for it to happen, the two would need to explain to Sora all the new rules that came with allowing him a friend. No leaving his wing of the castle. No more than _one_ friend. Most importantly, no straying. It was possible for him to overrule the confusion magic as long as he remained very, very vigilant, and never let his new friend out of his field of vision.

Sora, predictably, didn’t care about the rules. The only thing he cared about was the fact that he would have a friend. As far as he was concerned, everything else was completely irrelevant.

King Strife sighed.

He sincerely hoped that all would go well in spite of Sora’s childlike carelessness. Maybe he’d actually gotten through to that little head of his, hopefully with something Sora would remember before crossing a line that he shouldn’t, as neither he nor his husband wanted to see what their son would look like upon being told to say goodbye to the only friend he’d ever made.

All of that was purely hypothetical, though, and in the meantime, their son looked positively ecstatic by the news. He was jumping up and down in circles around his room, laughing, shouting thanks at his parents as he rambled on and on to Goofy and Donald about all the fun they would have once Riku was there.

Riku, the boy that Sora had befriended, was confirmed by Squall to be the very same that Cloud had rescued just a little under five years ago. Their son’s birthday was not that far in the past yet— he remembered vividly what it’d been like to escape from Maleficent’s lair with that child in hand, flaming darkness in hot pursuit as he’d leaped out of dodge.

It couldn’t be coincidence that the silver-haired child was appearing yet again. Not to say that he was going to bar him from seeing his son based on those grounds, as he believed in giving everyone a fighting chance, but the king would take care to watch Riku closely for anything suspicious. Sora’s safety was his top priority after all. One thing that Riku did have going for him, at least, was his mother; he trusted that (the now retired) General Aqua had raised her son well enough that he wouldn’t need to exercise any authority of removing him.

The following morning, the kings sent a summon for Aqua and her son, waiting patiently in the throne room for the two to approach.

Shockingly blue locks appeared from around the corner soon afterwards. Aqua had never been never one for leaving people waiting long, responding to their call as quickly and efficiently as always. She bowed at their thrones. Surprisingly, her young son who’d followed silently behind did so without any prompting on the general’s part.

Squall decided to handle the disclaimers. He called Riku to stand in front of him, where he fixed the boy with a hard, penetrating gaze, explaining the risks of entering the living castle in heavy detail.

Getting lost in the prince’s quarters was a very distinct possibility should he decide to take Sora’s offer of friendship. It wouldn’t be easy to put in the effort of traversing the rooms, especially for someone as little as he, who could very easily encounter a number of obstacles that would crush his body like a grape. That part of the castle was _more_ than notorious for its danger. They weren’t about to let this boy in if he couldn’t handle it.

To the kings’ surprise, Riku refused the opportunity to back down. There was a fire in his eyes that not only didn’t extinguish upon being informed of the challenge, but instead grew brighter, like he’d been waiting to hear the words his entire life. The boy agreed to the terms with no visible hesitation.

Cloud would be impressed by his determination if he was sure that it wasn’t actually naïveté. General Aqua also gave her permission for Riku to accept, looking oddly unconcerned by her child condemning himself to an uncertain fate in the name of maintaining a friendship with the prince. She waved it off when asked if she was certain.

“Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to stop him.” Aqua conceded, running her hands through Riku’s hair fondly. “He’s just like Ventus. Stubborn to the bone.”

King Strife took over the conversation from there. He had to discuss with her a basic schedule of when he would enter, when he would be expected to return, how often, etcetera, all hinging on the idea that the boy would succeed in his attempts to get through the living castle on his own until he could find the door to Sora’s room.

Together, they agreed that Riku’s first attempt would take place two days from then, and if he wasn’t lost or otherwise, he’d be allowed to keep trying every Friday.

A small mercy was granted to the antsy prince by courtesy of the sun, which allowed the days to pass rather quickly in sympathy for his anticipation.

Sora was unaware of when his new friend would come to visit, as unfortunately, the kings couldn’t risk overexposing themselves by returning to let him know of the response. However, deep in his heart, Sora felt that Riku would keep his word and come to see him again. He stayed patient by recounting everything that he and the other boy had talked about nearly word-for-word to his happily ignorant dog and irritable duck as he explored through the new rooms that had appeared while he was away.

As for the changeling, he prepared himself to enter the most unpredictable part of the Destiny Castle on the very next Friday without so much as a clue about how to navigate it.

His brother had packed him a satchel for the journey that was filled with snacks, potions, and ethers just in case he might need them, but otherwise, Riku was unsure of what he would need or how to approach. The kings weren’t able to provide more than generic advice because of how the area was structured— since it was always changing, the hazards were theoretically infinite and statistically negligible.

Figuring out potential enemies would be difficult without size reference for the rooms, too, as they didn’t seem to be restricted by the outward structure of the castle and thus could be almost any width or height.

_Eh, whatever._ Riku thought, taking his first echoing step into the dark of the pathway to the sound of the adults murmuring behind him. _Nothing is going to get in my way if I can help it._

It was hard to see where he was going beyond the next few feet ahead in any given direction. There were allegedly parts of the castle that went without light sources for days unless Sora was near to give them reason to manifest. He’d keep an eye out for any light he could follow, but Riku was otherwise forced to walk by himself through the shadows while keeping one hand on the stone walls.

Seeing in the dark wouldn’t be so much of a problem, ironically, if he wasn’t constantly suppressing the storage of darkness in his heart. One of the side effects of using it often was that he _could_ develop superior night vision. He’d never really wanted to, seeing that he was usually awake during the day. Perhaps the skill would come in handy if he’d be going through this wing of the castle a lot.

He decided to give it a go. With no one around to be hurt by it, he didn’t mind using a little bit of darkness.

The changeling was tentative with releasing his magic, not allowing more than a small amount to unfurl at a time. It filled his senses with the overwhelming smell of rainwater and wet earth the more was freed into the open air. Riku created a simple sphere of energy around him.

_How did that spell go again?_

He’d read a book about basic dark magic a while ago, while practicing his reading skills. There was something in there describing a nonpermanent vision spell if he remembered correctly. “Um,” Riku whispered into the room. “Clairvoyance?”

The good news was that it worked. Images of the room flooded his mind, painting a picture of a few different paths that he could take ahead of him, with one that lead underground, two that branched off to the left, and one directly on his righthand side. However, the idea had worked a little too well, as the energy accidentally provided him with the layout of the room in three hundred sixty degrees all at once. Unaccustomed to seeing behind him at the same time as seeing in front of him, it was disorienting, to say the least.

There was no way he’d be able to move forward if he didn’t spend some time adjusting to how his new form of vision worked. Figuring out exactly where he was standing in relation to everything else should not have been as hard as it was…

Suddenly, as he’d been experimenting with walking towards the left passageway, he felt something, an odd sensation blooming across his aura of dark magic that was undeniably light.

Riku attempted to look up and follow it with his eyes, but with the spell activated, the movement did nothing to change his ability to perceive what was happening. He was forced to settle for feeling it out with a hesitant nudge from his energy field. The magic was _very_ familiar. If he had to take a guess, he’d say it felt like Sora’s, but it was far too weak to make out with any kind of real certainty beyond suspicion.

A tendril of light wove around him and pulled some of his darkness off to the path that lead underground. It was obviously trying to encourage him down that hall— he guessed he should investigate over there first once he was reliably able to move again. That direction was as good as any.

Riku spent the next few hours clearing room after room, floor after floor, in search of Sora’s bedchamber, which was the only known stronghold in this wing of the castle that was clear of confusion spells.

The light magic functioned as a map, guiding him through each of the twisted hallways by way of hidden doors or staircases that would have taken him ages to find on his own. He didn’t know why it was helping him, but he refused to complain if he would be led to where he needed to go. At least it helped account for his mediocre night vision. Riku struggled through a doorway blocked by stalactites on his way to the next area, and then perked up when the magic leading him got a boost in strength. He _must_ be getting closer. That, and he could now feel Sora’s distinct signature in the light dancing around him.

_Aha! I knew his highness would pull through for me,_ the changeling hummed happily.

An answering pulse of darkness was sent out in every direction with the hopes that it would reach Sora wherever he was at the moment. Riku wasn’t sure how well the prince could sense magic; sometimes Aqua and Ventus were annoyingly obtuse about it, though he supposed it couldn’t go wrong in a situation like this. Sora had already displayed an impressive resistance to darkness. Regardless of whether or not he understood it was Riku calling, he wouldn’t be hurt by the message. That was the only thing he cared about.

Meanwhile, just a few more floors away, Sora stopped his adventuring for a second. He’d felt something cool and soothing wash over him as he was about to chart the last new room on the 11th level, which caused him to wait with his hand held firmly over his heart. It was like stepping into a body of water. Flowing, shifting, gently holding him afloat.

Darkness so thick that it couldn’t contain itself. Rolling waves of the ocean under a huge, endless sky of stars.

Prince Sora got the impression that his wait was almost over.


	6. A Beginning, of Sorts (pt. 1)

For the first time in Sora’s life, he wasn’t alone, and he was so happy about it he didn’t even know what to do with himself.

He’d been by himself for as long as he could remember. While not a very long time in the grand scheme of the universe and everything, it was immense to someone who’d never really been around people before. It was more than just a novelty. Sora became enchanted by everything he never realized he’d been missing.

There was all of a sudden someone to talk to when he came up with a joke or a story. Riku was there to tell _him_ a joke or a story if he wanted to. The two of them were able to run around, exploring together, where Sora could show him everything about the castle that he loved, now completed, since he had someone to care about it with him. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. As far as he was concerned, it was a miracle of unrealistic proportions.

Unlike his parents, who would grow weary of listening over a certain number of minutes, Riku didn’t mind his hyperactivity or tendency to run his mouth for hours on end without pause, seeming to be interested in what he had to say.

He was calm and mindful, preferring to listen most of the time instead of speak. He didn’t say much besides a comment every now and again unless Sora could trick him into talking about something he liked.

It made him appreciate the times that he did talk a lot more than he would have otherwise. Even the quiet that Sora dreaded so much was manageable with Riku there to help him remember that it wasn’t all a dream.

They just… meshed together. 

He made the prince feel like he was finally being seen. Sora had a voice and a body now, in a way that he hadn’t when he was talking to the walls or the ceiling in an attempt to fill the silence.

Riku reminded him that he was alive in the very best way. Asking him questions, taking his hand, making little sounds that no one would ever notice if they’d been around them their whole lives. It grounded him down to earth. Every soft puff of Riku’s breath made Sora realize that he had a physical form that could be perceived. He wasn’t the drifting consciousness in the wind that he felt like on his own.

Did being alive really make everyone feel this wonderful?

Who knew.

Maybe it was a result of his extended isolation, maybe it was Riku, a combination of both, or even neither. Sora didn’t care why his heart felt so light these days so long as it didn’t ever stop.

Spending the months exploring the living castle with his new friend felt so much like one of his old daydreams that sometimes he wasn’t entirely sure if he was making all of it up. Nevertheless, Riku continued to make reappearances every time that doubt started to catch hold, whistling a tune as he made his way through each obstacle on the path back to Sora’s side.

Every nook and cranny that Sora knew like the back of his hand, Riku came to know as well. Sora shared as much of it as he could. He wanted to give his friend everything he could offer as thanks for what he was doing for him, making certain that he understood how much it meant. Luckily, spoiling Riku with affection was one thing he was naturally gifted at.

Ushering him into hugs had taken a bit of prompting on the prince’s part. He had to wait until he was sure that Riku would be comfortable with it first.

While he was impatient in many things, Sora was willing to take his time on this, and thus was slowly able to acclimate Riku to the casual touch. At first, he’d been a _little_ bit worried by how stiff he stood when Sora hugged him. He found out later that it was just how Riku accepted praise (or any kind of positive acknowledgement at all). Who would have ever guessed that he was so timid?

A while longer of careful prodding led to him hugging back. Soon enough, Sora had him sinking down into his embrace, going all nice and soft once he got it in his head that Sora wouldn’t turn him away. Riku’s hugs were surprisingly warm, given how cold his hands always were.

_Mission accomplished!_ He thought giddily. _Friend successfully converted to the comfy side._

Soon enough, time began to move forward with the two of them in tow. The seasons turned, and the balmy summertime weather that they both loved for its beauty and despised for its heat gave way to the Destiny Islands’ rainy season. Calling it cold would’ve been a huge overstatement. It was temperate at best.

Riku didn’t feel the change in weather when the seasons blended into each other, at least, not the way that Sora did, where he started to shiver as they traveled across the castle more and more until the changeling noticed him trembling in place around open windows.

Though Sora didn’t know this, Riku theorized that it was a result of the steadily growing power of the moon in the approaching winter months. Sora’s light magic was- surprise, surprise- strongly dependent on the sun. The changeling’s own darkness had recently been getting restless, harder to control the closer the year moved towards the winter solstice.

Riku laughed and poked fun at him for being so sensitive, but once his hugs weren’t able to do the job quite well enough at keeping the prince warm, he insisted that they hole up in Sora’s room to ride out the cooler temperatures. Thus began exploration of a different kind: The two of them had to figure out how to entertain themselves in the relatively mundane space of the prince’s bedroom. No adventurous perils awaited them there, only a grumpy duck, friendly dog, and a lot of pillows and blankets.

Goofy warmed up to Riku effective immediately. Sora had expected as much— to his knowledge, the dog had never met someone who he didn’t like right off the bat, and in Sora’s opinion, Riku was pretty likeable.

Donald was definitely harder to convince.

The very minute that Riku opened the door to the prince’s bedroom, Sora was forced to rush forward, prying Donald’s flailing, livid body off of Riku’s face before someone got seriously injured. Riku was usually pretty good about keeping his magic under wraps, though that didn’t apply super well when he was attacked unexpectedly. Darkness exploded out of him like a bomb along with a lot of confusion and enraged quacking.

It got to the point where Sora accidentally cast a stop spell out of frustration. Unintentional, yet effective.

Removing Donald became much easier once frozen in time, but getting Riku through the door was a predicament all on its own. He wasn’t incredibly strong. Goofy, the only other creature unaffected by the spell, tried very hard to help him by nudging Riku’s legs with his nose. It was the thought that counted.

Satisfied with having dragged Riku to the foot of his bed several sweaty minutes later, Sora doubled back and dropped the duck unceremoniously outside of the big wooden double doors, slamming them shut. Bad ducks get time out for attacking friends.

He’d come around. Donald was-

Okay, he was kind of a jerk. Sora loved him anyway.

From that day forward, whenever he got too cold to play in the castle’s various rooms, Riku would sit crisscross on Sora’s giant bed and regale him with tales from his older brother’s storybooks.

Acting them out together was a lot of fun. Sora could summon just about any prop that they needed by asking the castle for it, and the two of them had the benefit of already having someone to play the prince and someone to play the knight if need be. Sometimes he liked to make Riku play the prince instead though. It was funny how easily Sora could make him shy by calling him “Your Highness”.

Getting to know little things like that was hands-down Sora’s favorite part of having a friend. Things that didn’t matter, but did matter in a strange way. Sora could list Riku’s favorite stories in alphabetical order, give a presentation on his top three favorite swords, and tell someone his favorite colors in the order of which he preferred them organized in his wardrobe. Sora didn’t even know his _parents_ well enough to say for sure if they liked being called by their titles, or if it was just a formality that they endured, but he knew now that Riku was embarrassed to be called by those kinds of high respects.

Maybe he should ask his parents about it sometime.

He didn’t blame them for not being around, really… he knew that they were busy. It was only that spending time with Riku made him realize how empty his day-to-day life had been before.

But a positive outlook is what Sora prided himself in! Now that he had a friend to share his life with, he decided he was going to be the bestest friend that this world, and especially Riku, had ever seen. Sora was gonna friend so hard that Riku would be _dizzy_ with it.

He was so excited to start growing up with him. Whatever was waiting, they’d go together.

\---

Vanitas swirled the wine in his glass around a few times in mock contemplation, kicking his disgusting dirt-caked shoes up onto his polished mahogany desk knowing perfectly well that Ventus’ instincts as a servant made him itch to scrub the dusty surface clean.

“So, your little brat wants to train with me, huh?”

He smiled thinly at his guest. No mirth reached his eyes with the action, giving Ventus cause to believe that, perhaps, now hadn’t been the best time to bring something like this up with the captain.

Ventus lowered his head to complete his gesture of surrender.

He could deal with Vanitas’ bullshit long enough to perform a favor for his younger brother. After all, Riku would be the one to experience the fallout if things went south. All he had to do was suck up to him for a little bit and things would be fine.

“You heard correctly.” Ventus answered.

Vanitas scowled. “You heard correctly…?”

_I’m doing this for Riku. Remember Riku._ He focused on keeping a steady rhythm of breath intake so as not to do something he’d regret.

“You heard correctly, _Captain_.” Ventus amended, vividly fantasizing about how ridiculously simple it would be to reach across the desk and choke him.

Vanitas seemed satisfied with that, albeit begrudgingly. He cocked his chin towards the chair in front of his desk. Dismissed from form, Ventus stood, gathering up the flowing red cape behind him so it wouldn’t bunch awkwardly when he took his seat. Judgmental golden eyes watched him closely as he moved.

“Care for a drink before we begin?” The captain snarked, using the hand without a glass in it to pull the jet-black spikes of his hair away from his face. “I have a feeling I’m going to need some more to get through this conversation.”

Of course he declined. Whatever kind of wine Vanitas was drinking was probably something disgustingly bitter, and so close to being pure alcohol that it would burn through his stomach lining upon taking a taste.

“Don’t kid yourself, Vanitas, I know that you’re only saying that to be dramatic. You couldn’t get intoxicated if you tried.”

That finally made him laugh. Throwing his head back revealed a neat row of sharp teeth, enlarged incisors typical of dark mages poking out below the rest. “I can’t help the fact that you light users are so affected by ‘toxic substances’ and ‘poison’.” He said, making hand quotes, to which the servant boy rolled his eyes. Vanitas drained his glass and tossed it behind him with a shattering crash.

“Anyhow, explain to me further, Venty-Wenty. Why should I take your brother as an understudy? What reasons do I, the captain of your Knight Platoon, have to teach a toddler how to swordfight? I hope for your sake that you’ve prepared a statement. Perhaps a five hundred to six hundred-word essay detailing the topic. Make it seven hundred if you don’t know how to read.”

Yeah, Ventus definitely got the idea that he hadn’t caught Vanitas in one of his better moods.

Darkness pooled around him with the words, taking the shape of curious shadows, little rabbit-like creatures that scurried across the room to find the darkest corners to watch from, their unblinking yellow eyes fixating on him from everywhere they hid. He didn’t much appreciate the feeling of being studied by the captain’s fucked up woodland creatures.

Ventus cleared his throat. “Riku isn’t a toddler. He turned six in July, you know.” After a moment of consideration, he realized he was on to something with that point. “You really _should_ know that, considering that His Highness Prince Sora shares a birthday with him.”

“Aren’t they like a year off?” Vanitas mused.

“Not that it’s relevant to Riku’s case, but yes.” The servant responded while crossing his arms.

Lacing his fingers together, Vanitas brought his feet to the floor as he leaned forward, resting his elbows and settling into place like he was getting ready to actually _do_ some of the paperwork on his desk. What a novel thought. “You see— that’s where you’re wrong. My cousin is very relevant to what you’re asking here.”

Obviously. Riku wanted to be the prince’s Royal Escort, so it was only logical that Prince Sora would be brought up at some point in this discussion. It was the exact time elapse that didn’t make much of a difference. Realistically, Vanitas knew that, and was only being facetious to throw him off.

“Let’s say, for the sake of the argument, that I was interested. That doesn’t mean very much without Sora’s consent. I’m not going to train up some rando to be his bodyguard just because you have favor with me.”

Favor. _Favor?_ If this was how Vanitas treated those whom he held favor to, he shuddered to think of what it’d be like to be the captain’s enemy.

Regardless, he didn’t think that was going to be much of an issue. Sora and Riku got along like a house on fire. Oftentimes it was harder to separate them than it was to just let them be. “You certainly haven’t talked to His Highness in a while if you think that’s going to be a problem.”

Captain Vanitas had the nerve to arch an eyebrow in disbelief. “Oh?”

“He and my brother are literally together all the time, and have been since, like, April. I think you’re getting out of touch, Vani-boy.” Ventus joked.

“That’s still Captain Vani-boy to you, bitch.”

The fact that he wasn’t obliterated for that was a testament to Vanitas’ friendship, he assumed.

To Ventus’ surprise, the man seemed to consider what he said, making a few grumbling hums under his breath. His fingers came apart to drum on his desk silently. As long as Ventus didn’t move or make noise, he might, _might_ get what he asked for, or something close to it at least.

Ten or so minutes passed. Ventus almost checked to see if he’d fallen asleep before his startling golden eyes snapped open to stare at him.

He was quickly reminded of all the monstrous pairs of eyes watching him throughout the darkened office. Some of them did blink sometimes, he discovered, though it didn’t do much to ease his nerves.

“You haven’t won yet. I need to do some research first.” Vanitas waved his hand, and the door that he hadn’t even noticed was locked behind him came open with a barely audible click. “As a one-time-only courtesy, I won’t kill you for not making an appointment first.”

There was no reason to mention that Vanitas didn’t take appointments. Both of them knew it.

“Well, I can tell when I’m no longer wanted.” Ventus brushed off his clothes, standing up to leave while the exit still existed. “Would you like me to take the glass that you broke all over the floor?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I’m saving that for a midnight snack.”

_Alrighty then_.

Without further ado, Ventus disappeared through the door, leaving only the swishing sound of his cape behind.

The candles that had been illuminating the room for his guest swiftly extinguished. He was alone there in the darkness, surrounded on all sides by monsters, none so much as himself. It made him smile to think about. He didn’t need a night light; Vanitas wasn’t afraid of the dark.

His creatures dripped down from the ceiling to chitter at him questioningly. “I think it’s time that I pay a visit to my dear cousin. Completely unrelated to Ventus, of course.”

He munched on a shard of glass. It wasn’t particularly tasty, but the texture was to die for.

\---

The coldest, darkest days of the year descended upon the land like a heavy blanket, often blocking out the sun with greyscale storm clouds that seemed to swallow the sky whole.

Riku still didn’t feel it. He didn’t know why, exactly, but the rain simply didn’t affect him in the same way that it did everybody else in the castle. All around, people were abandoning their loose summer garb in favor of sweaters and thick coats. There wasn’t a bare arm or leg in sight.

Even Aqua and Ven had forgone their usual clothing for thicker fabrics to repel the rain. They tried desperately to make Riku bundle up for the weather as well, offering him fluffy cloaks with scolding words on their tongues about how he was going to get sick if he didn’t put them on. He didn’t understand the hoopla. None of the raging storms really caught his attention much unless someone mentioned that he was dripping water everywhere, or on the occasions that he was in the living castle, if Sora was shivering.

The winter hadn’t been very kind to his friend so far. Sora got cold pretty easily, which Riku thought was fair considering how _warm_ he was all the time. Touching Sora in any manner felt like he was burning against Riku’s chilly hands. Having a high body temperature would make everything feel colder than it really was, he supposed.

In spite of Riku’s protests, Aqua had insisted that he wear a heavy cloak now when he was going to visit the prince. It accomplished very little outside of making him sweat a lot when he was running. He kept it on anyway, if only to make sure that his mother wouldn’t worry about him, but really, he meant it when he said that he was fine.

Riku really liked the cold. Rain sounded pretty against the windows of the servants’ quarters when he was trying to sleep, and the wind felt good when it swept through his hair.

A smaller part of him like warmth, too. Not a lot of it. The beating sun of the Destiny Islands’ summer was horrible every time it rolled around, making him want to peel his skin off to cool down when there was nothing else he could do. He could only rip away so many layers in sweaty, sticky frustration before he was naked, and that kind of thing was typically frowned upon when living in conjunction with strangers.

Other types of warmth were okay though. For example, Riku liked it when Aqua made him warm milk at night. That kind was comforting. More of a feeling, honestly, than it was a matter of hot or cold. It was the same thing that he felt when Ventus ruffled his hair, or when Sora hugged him, or when Sora smiled.

Yeah. Sometimes, the warmth could be very nice.

He still could do without the fuss.

Seriously, he was just going to Sora’s place, it wasn’t like Riku was getting ready to make a trip to the arctic tundra. This place hardly counted as cold by most countries’ standards. In the accounts that he’d read of The Land of Dragons, or say, Arendelle, they told of snow, ice, frosty mountains, and glaciers the size of the Destiny Palace or bigger. The worst thing that could happen in a Destiny Islands rainstorm was getting smacked in the face by a flying coconut.

That actually did happen sometimes, as ridiculous as it sounds, though Riku doubted that it would pose an issue indoors. Besides, the cloak that his mom and brother forced him to wear wouldn’t do anything in opposition to that.

Riku had to duck away from Aqua’s concerned glances as he laced up his shoes in the dark of the early morning. She wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that she wanted him to dress more appropriately for the season, gently nudging a pair of gloves at him.

“I’m not going to put them on.” He grouched.

Aqua frowned from where she sat on his bed, holding the gloves towards him more forcefully. “Come on, Riku, it’s absolutely pouring outside today. I’m not letting you go over there without at least something to keep you warm.”

“If it gets too cold, I’ll ask to borrow one of His Highness’ jackets. You know he wouldn’t let me freeze.” Riku assured.

Though she knew that it was true, the prince _was_ thoughtful like that, she sighed, exasperated. “The prince’s jackets are far too small on you now- I don’t know _how_ you can stand wearing them when you two stopped being able to match sizes months ago.”

Riku shrugged. Sora’s jackets were too small on him around the shoulders and torso, indeed, but he liked wearing them anyway when he could get away with stealing one.

“I don’t know. They smell like him.” He offered.

Aqua wrinkled her nose in pretend disgust. “And that’s a good thing, somehow?”

He didn’t bother to respond to that, shooting an unamused glare in her direction when he finished threading the laces through his boots and tied them tight into double-knotted bows.

Aqua held his gaze for as long as she could, but she was at a disadvantage, not used to being awake this early. She shook her head. “Just be safe, Riku. I better not hear about you catching a cold, because if you do, you’re not going to be seeing the prince for another two weeks. It’d be nothing for you but bed, soup, and sleep.”

Eating soup and sitting around in bed would hardly be much of a threat if she didn’t hold seeing Sora over it. That kind of stuff was non-negotiable.

He guessed he’d need to be careful.

Aqua smoothed her hand over his hair, then heaved herself up, most likely to get another two or three hours of sleep before she’d need to start her morning duties around the palace.

Ventus was way ahead of her on that. He was snoring away without a care in the world that his brother was up and about, with or without gloves. Riku had an inkling that he could destroy the building around them to dust and Ven would still sleep through it as long as he had a pillow under his head. 

“I’ll be back.” Riku said quietly. The door shut behind him with a flick of his wrist, and he stepped out into the kitchens, ready to make his way to the living castle.

There wasn’t much to say about Sora’s quarters. They were just as large and confusing as they always were, filled to the brim with false passageways, puzzles, and death traps of varying sizes. Luckily for him, though, the castle was getting used to his presence enough that it let him walk through them with very little fanfare. Waltzing past a wall of cascading lava should terrify Riku a lot more than it did.

Eh, he’d seen it already.

Riku chased the feeling of Sora’s light up several floors before he thought to check out the window for the time. The rain hadn’t ceased, pounding mercilessly with all the rage of an island denied of this relief for the past year. But it was lighter outside than it was when he left, if only by a few shades of grey, even past the sheets of falling water.

He’d say that it’d been about forty minutes since he left, give or take. Here’s to hoping that his guess was correct. The difficulty of telling the time by shadows was significantly increased when there was very little or inaccurate light to cast said shadows.

In any case, what he actually had wanted to know by attempting to tell the time was less to sate his own curiosity and more a matter of whether or not he would be running late today. Reaching Sora’s bedroom could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours depending on how generous the castle was feeling that day, which rooms he had to go through, if there were any puzzles he couldn’t dodge solving, so on and so forth. Though Sora’s room never left its spot on the seventh floor, the way to get there changed every time. This meant that his estimated arrival time… varied.

Sometimes it got infuriating knowing that he was so close and yet wasn’t able to claim his challenge complete. Sora’s light was his saving grace in that sense. It provided him with a vague kind of compass, pointing him approximately where he needed to go to find the prince, as long as he was able to listen, and follow, by trusting in it.

Riku did trust it. He knew that Sora would never intentionally lead him astray. So, he followed the path laid out for him diligently, pushing ever forward.

It took two more hours of searching and following to come across the doors he was looking for. A sigh pushed its way out of his throat at the sight of the large blue torches bracketing the prince’s bedroom. Now he would have time to take off his satchel and heal up for a moment, and then when he’d step inside, Riku had a full day of playing with his best friend lined up for him. He wouldn’t admit it because it sounded kind of lame, but he was looking forward to it.

The sweet sugar-and-lemon aftertaste of the potion was still lingering on his tongue when he slid up to the doors. They creaked in greeting, sentient like most things on this side of the castle, popping open just the slightest bit to let him know he had passage. He patted the wood as he shimmied through.

“Good morning, Sora!” Riku called out.

He fully expected that the prince was still asleep. Sora rarely woke before late morning of his own devices, preferring to nap while the sun warmed his bedsheets through the windows. That was unlikely to be effective this particular morning. Though, he must say that he wouldn’t expect his friend to know the difference while unconscious. 

Given that, he hadn’t thought anything was out of place when he wasn’t answered by a drowsy groan. He simply continued following the usual routine.

Riku extracted the leather strap of his satchel from across his chest, rotating his arm to ease the soreness, and tossed it in the direction of the cushy reading chair that Sora had asked the castle to manifest for him a while back. It was his favorite spot in the bedroom. The chair was plush and squishy, and better yet, it was wide enough for the both of them to sit in if they wanted to. Next to the chair was a little table for holding drinks. His bag smacked against the legs of the table, rocking it slightly while Riku worked on stretching out his muscles.

So, what would he be reading today?

Dark and stormy meant no adventuring, but that was fine— the weather outside was just _perfect_ for curling up to read, in Riku’s opinion. He liked how nice and peaceful he felt in the atmosphere of the rainclouds. It made for amazing acoustics, so nice and comfortable from his soft chair with a great story held open in his arms.

Ah, yes, another example of the good kind of warm. Perhaps he should invest in a list.

The changeling cleared his throat. _Anyway…_

He’d like it even more after the prince woke up. Sora improved the atmosphere greatly by providing tea and cookies to share between them, as well as blankets, pillows, and active commentary to Riku’s dissertation. For now, since he was still sleeping, he would have to settle with what he had.

To his left sat a small shelf filled with the storybooks that Riku had either borrowed or stolen from Ventus at some point or another. They were being kept in better condition here than they ever had been before, where there were no people running in and out of the quarters to step on the corners and smudge the edges with footprints. Riku scanned through them quickly, deciding that today, he’d read the big yellow one while waiting for Sora to wake up. That was one of the newest that Riku had brought.

If he got a head start on the story now, it would be easier to decide the role that he’d play later. He nodded concisely, pulled it off the shelf, and threw himself bodily into his armchair to wait.

Or so he thought.

Unbeknownst to Riku, an entity emerged silently from the doors to the living castle on its way to his location, only making tiny, plapping footsteps on webbed feet in warning.

The page fluttered a bit whenever he turned it. Every fluttering sound, the creature got closer and closer to the chair. It stood by the doorway. Then at the foot of Sora’s bed. At the end of the bookshelf. Right next to where Riku sat. The boy was resting his head on the arm of the chair, legs dangling over the other side. 

Positioned just so, he was unable to view the creature right behind his head that was about to make a mockery of his peace.

Donald considered this to be a deadly mistake.

_“QUACK!”_ The duck screeched, causing Riku to jump hard enough that his book was knocked messily out of his lap onto the floor.

He scrambled around in the armchair to face his nemesis. As soon as he registered what had happened, Riku’s face flushed with humiliation, where he then grit his teeth. “Keep it down, Sora’s sleeping!” He whisper-shouted, bringing a finger up to his lips.

Donald looked at him in what could only be disapproval. How a _duck_ could manage such an expression was beyond him. A quieter, almost sarcastic quack was what he received in response.

Riku squinted. He- He didn’t have time for something this stupid. Heaving the book back into his grip, Riku tried to find his page again. After a minute or so, the silence began to unnerve him, so he peeked over the edge.

He suppressed a yelp. Donald was now standing on Riku’s knees, which he’d once again propped up on the far arm of the reading chair.

How did he get up there without him noticing? More importantly, what did he want?

The duck fluffed his feathers, then leaned back to preen a wing for a moment. Once his little face had emerged, Donald stared at him, unblinkingly, and enunciated very slowly, “ _quack.”_

Riku was officially terrified for his life.

Okay, so ignoring him wasn’t an option. He shut his book silently. Carefully, he locked eye contact with Donald, unsure of what was needed of him but willing to provide as long as it got the duck to leave. There was a glint in the duck’s irises that made Riku pretty sure that Donald knew this, somehow.

“Are you,” He threw a glance to either side of him just in case this was a prank. “Trying to tell me something?”

Sora did not jump out to laugh at him, so he figured he was in the clear on that. His harasser only stared at him as if to say _obviously._

“Well come out with it, then. And don’t be so weirdly cryptic about it.” Riku pleaded. All he’d wanted to do was read. Being roped into Donald’s horror novel schemes wasn’t something he particularly wanted to deal with on his own, without Sora acting as a middle man to pull the two of them apart if things got dicey.

Donald complied with his demand of brevity. The cryptic, however? Pumped up to max. Riku was fairly certain that he’d never been chill for a single second in his pathetic duck life.

It took approximately two blinks before Donald was off of Riku’s knees, burning a hole into Riku’s forehead with his beady eyes from the doorway, though surprisingly, not the one he had expected.

Typically, there were two sets of doors leading out of Sora’s bedroom. One led out to the living castle. That was the set Riku was most familiar with, having gone through it just about every time he came here (save for one very strange afternoon in which he tried to get something from Ventus’ closet only to end up standing in his friend’s closet instead).

The second supposedly led to an unknown hallway in the mundane castle. It was the only quick way out of the magic area to Riku’s knowledge, but the kings were the only ones who knew how to use it, and it could only be opened from the outside on very specific days. That set disappeared pretty frequently to go do… door things… somewhere else.

The third set of doors only appeared if Sora asked it to. Those were the doors to his actual chambers, like the kinds that other royals had. Inside was a kitchen that was always stocked with whatever food the prince wanted, a small table for him to eat at, and a bath chamber.

He guessed he must have missed it when he came in. But if the door was there, then that meant that Sora had asked it to be.

Was Sora awake already?

“Why didn’t you just yell at me from the door to begin with? That would have saved both of us a lot of time.” Riku hissed. The duck was unimpressed by his reasoning, turning to waddle through the entrance as it cracked open for him automatically.

Well fine then.

Riku took a moment to slip the yellow book back into its place on the shelf before he made his way to the indicated set of doors. There wasn’t anything particularly notable about them that he could see, at least, not immediately. Donald was probably referring him to whatever was behind the doors.

He breathed in deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance, and entered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I personally believe that Donald would be the most terrifying cryptid to ever exist if he was just a little bit less anthropomorphic. Have you ever met an actual duck? Fucking scary dude


	7. A Beginning, of Sorts (pt. 2: electric boogaloo)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure about how long this chapter is, because it hit the 15 page mark like usual on my documents but I don't know how much of that was spacing... anyway, thank you so much to everyone who left kudos and comments!!!! I really can't begin to describe how happy it makes me :))))))))) 
> 
> Sorry for being a few days late for updating, I had my hands full with preparation for Mabon. By the way, happy Mabon to all my Pagan/Wiccan readers! Happy late Rosh Hashanah to my Jewish readers too! Regardless of religion or lack thereof, may the new season bless you well. <3

As a loud crack broke the air in pieces, Sora counted his third shaking breath out from the tiny corner of the pantry that he was sandwiched into, his hands pressed rather painfully over his ears.

If he could look at a mirror right now, he would see that they had been clawed and rubbed raw from the fingers clutched over them. Red irritation bloomed angrily across his hazel skin like cream still not fully mixed in a cup of tea, sticking out on the prince brighter than a candle in the night. It was honestly quite the accomplishment to get bruises so visible with his complexion. Not that he was aware of this, of course, being occupied causing the bruises to form in the first place.

Another deep rumble rolled across the sky. He gripped his ears even tighter.

At the moment, he wasn’t much in the mood for caring about appearances. The pain was just a dull thought at the back of his mind under something much bigger: It was that _noise._

The horrible sound that made his stomach turn and his skin crawl. So loud, so baritone in nature that it was all-consuming. Sora felt it ripping his body apart from the seams every time it rang in the open air. Thunder was too big, too powerful, and he was simply too small.

He had to hold his breath to keep himself from hyperventilating, tears brimming in his eyes as he sank to the floor. The floor was safe. The floor wasn’t going to hurt him.

Wedged underneath the lowest-sitting pantry shelf was the most secure place he could think of to stay right now, though he could admit that even in the best of circumstances it wasn’t ideal. It was narrow and restrictive, far away from windows, and had only one entrance and exit, said entrance being shut tightly with no chance of its opening going unnoticed by Sora. Though it made for a great panic room… he really would rather be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Perhaps in his bedroom, to name a contender, where he could’ve been cuddled up in his warm bed while listening to Riku shuffle around the room until he felt like opening his eyes. If it had only been raining today, that’s exactly what would have happened. Sora almost had a lovely morning filled with tea and fresh cookies and the soothing sound of Riku’s voice. What a _dream_ it could have been. And of course it had to be just that.

A dream. All because of some stupid _sound._

He didn’t care one bit about what his parents said to him about electricity or light and dark energies colliding or whatever they used to tell him to make him shut up. Maybe it couldn’t actually hurt him from outside the castle. That didn’t matter. It didn’t do anything to comfort him when the sonorous wave was crawling over Sora as does a swarm of malicious spiders, trapping his limbs, scuttling over every inch of him so he couldn’t move and couldn’t breathe through the web that hung in his throat.

_Get out, get away, don’t think. It won’t hurt you if you don’t listen. Cover your ears. Don’t listen. Get out. Stop thinking. Get away._

His thoughts were a windmill of repeating phrases that warped every time he heard them until they became indistinguishable from one another. He was right, really, that he should stop thinking.

Other than the continuous drum of rain and the occasional, yet all too frequent bursts of thunder, the only sounds being made around him were those of his animal friends, who watched him forlornly from their places around the pantry.

Goofy rested his giant muzzle on his forepaws with sad eyes turned up to where Sora sat. The prince had buried himself under the sacks of sugar and flour laying on the floor, trembling violently in a way that caused the shelf above his head to shake as well. His dog whined at every twitch, aware that there was nothing he could do to ease Sora’s suffering except be present for him.

Even Donald appeared sympathetic. He made small quacks of worry into Goofy’s fur from where he sat perched on his back. Usually, Donald would be squawking sternly, trying to get him to stop crying and go to bed again. This time, he seemed to be at a loss.

Above him on the higher shelves were two little mice- whom he’d dubbed Mr. Mickey and Ms. Minnie- squeaking worriedly at each other. They seemed to be communicating with Goofy every now and again, waving their paws to catch his attention, although he neglected to answer much beyond a half-hearted woof that was kept low and silent so as not to scare Sora.

He appreciated the effort. Sora took his head in his unstable hands, continuing to think in spirals against his better judgement.

Logically, he knew that he wasn’t doing much by staying here except causing his friends to stress themselves. Mr. Mickey and Ms. Minnie didn’t mind his company. They wouldn’t kick him out or anything, he wasn’t particularly worried on that front… but this wasn’t his territory and he knew it.

Yes, these were his quarters, technically. Still, he’d never thought of this place as belonging to him.

It belonged to a different prince of the Destiny Islands— one who was allowed to leave his rooms. One who knew everything about everyone, and everyone loved him for it. These chambers were made for a prince that was brave, resilient, and strong, not someone _weak_ like him, who was afraid to face the storm without someone to hold his hand.

Some prince he was.

How could he even call himself a real prince? He was so horribly unpracticed at social interactions outside of his visits with Riku; the knights’ banquets hardly counted. Sora was supposed to be a wallflower at those, seen and not heard. He panicked whenever he was prompted to talk to someone that he didn’t know. The last two banquets that he’d attended, he’d been clinging to Riku the whole time, letting him carry all the work of his royal duty while he just acted the part, eyes desperately not meeting theirs.

Wherever the confidence that had allowed him to befriend Riku all those months ago went, it had left him lying in the dust so that he felt stupid and speechless when people asked him questions and no sound came out of his mouth at all.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk. He did. But with his parents watching him like a hawk whenever he was out of his room, he felt like there was a limit on how much freedom he could actually allow himself. He’d already been greedy enough to insist on keeping Riku around… if his parents saw that he was getting too social, they might decide to take his friend away, which was the only thing Sora could think of at the moment that was infinitely scarier than the thunder outside.

As if it had been listening to his internal monologue, a sudden boom from the sky shook him out of that line of thinking. He whimpered, curling so far into himself that he could no longer make out anything from behind his legs.

There was no point in trying to regain control of his mind if even his own self-deprecating thoughts couldn’t ground him.

Upon concluding that he could no longer distract himself from the sound, Sora thusly fell prey to the panic that had been waiting so patiently for him to succumb to it from under his skin.

Across the room, Donald ruffled his feathers, finally deciding for Sora’s sake that enough was enough. With purpose, he jumped off of Goofy’s back to start waddling towards the exit.

Every animal in the room looked up curiously at the movement. Crawling forth, Ms. Minnie squeaked at Donald, protesting in a language that the prince was unable to understand.

“ _Surely, you don’t mean to leave now. Sora’s in pain!”_ She said.

Donald made an expression of deep focus. He stamped one of his webbed feet down in answer, saying _“He is in pain, and we’re not helping. Look at him, he’s scared out of his wits!”_

The pair of mice and remaining dog turned to see as Sora climbed down to lay fully on the floor. Knees pulled up to his face, hands clenched tightly over his ears, Sora took the fetal position in attempt to calm himself. It looked to be of little avail. He was borderline inconsolable.

Minnie brought a paw up to her snout with concern, snuffling at Donald. _“Do you really think leaving him alone in such a state would help?”_

_“I’m not leaving him alone; I’m going to get someone who can do this job properly.”_ He quacked authoritatively. “ _That changeling boy may be stupid, and dangerous in my opinion… but he makes Sora happy. He needs to be here to help, too.”_

And so Donald marched his way to Sora’s bedroom.

The prince sobbed when the door creaked, probably interpreting it as another bout of thunder in his hysterical state.

The terrified cries caused each of their hearts to break in a way not expressible through words. Sora was wonderfully articulate for his age, and wise beyond his years in how to love, but episodes like this made them all uncomfortably aware that he was still so young and so small underneath the bravado.

_“I don’t know about this.”_ Minnie fretted. _“I’ve only ever sensed that much darkness on monsters.”_

At that, Goofy finally lifted his head up to add a comment. _“Aw, don’t be like that. Riku may have a lotta darkness in that there heart of his, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. He cares ‘bout Sora an awful lot.”_

She didn’t seem very convinced.

Goofy wasn’t the type to push at people’s buttons, especially not with a lady as refined as Ms. Minnie, so he instead moved his snout to lay on his paws once again and watch over Sora. He stood by his statement, though. If Riku was as bad as everyone seemed to think he was, he wouldn’t bother to help the prince nearly as much as he did.

Labelling Riku as a bad influence for being a changeling was just rude. And calling him a monster, that was nothing short of ridiculous. It was pretty hard to take Riku’s darkness seriously after Goofy had witnessed him tickle-attacking Sora until he was laughing so hard that he couldn’t anymore.

She would see what he meant when she met Riku, hopefully within the next few minutes. The caution and the care that the changeling took when handling his friend was quite difficult to refute.

Soon the only one of them who hadn’t spoken his two cents on the matter was Mickey. He looked at all the remaining people in the room, including the poor boy falling apart in front of them.

_“Well, I think we should try it.”_

\---

When Donald returned with Riku following closely behind him, Goofy felt hopeful. For the first time since Sora had launched himself out of bed that morning to hide, his tail was able to wag again, inspired by the appearance of aid to thump against the ground in anticipation. A creature that had a human form would be able to help far more than any of them could in this circumstance.

Writhing darkness just barely held down from inside the boy’s chest made it clear that Riku was having difficulty concealing his annoyance at being interrupted from whatever he’d been doing before. The expression on his face was dull and apathetic, sort of spacey, until it suddenly dawned on him what he was looking at. His eyes widened, all traces of apathy disappearing like smoke in the wind.

“Sora!”

He rushed forward to drop to his knees in front of the prince. Bags of various baking ingredients prevented him from getting much closer, so he pushed one aside and shuffled into its place.

Goofy faced Minnie on her higher shelf, grinning. Everything would be okay soon.

One of his pale hands reached out hesitantly, brushing the sweaty bangs out of Sora’s face with a delicate touch, where he was then rewarded with a soft noise of acknowledgement. Riku sighed in clear relief that he was responsive.

“Are you okay? You’re not hurt or anything, right?” He asked, forcing his voice to be calm and steady.

Weakly, the prince shook his head no.

Tension filled Riku’s muscles again immediately following the admission. He looked like he was about ready to fight anything he made eye contact with as soon as Sora gave him the go-ahead. Riku said as much to him as he very gently coaxed Sora into his arms, beginning to rub his back in slow circles.

The violent words didn’t seem to faze Sora nearly as much as they did Minnie. Had she been human, she would have fanned herself at such language.

Being friends with Riku gave Sora plenty of practice at reading between the lines— he knew that the threats were (mostly) sarcastic, meant to be comforting, and they worked just as intended for him. His arms wrapped tightly around Riku’s back to pull them closer together. The changeling payed no mind to the tears soaking into his sleeve.

Their embrace morphed into a death grip a few moments later, Sora spurred on by thunder to involuntarily shout and bury his face further into his friend’s shoulder.

Riku looked confused, but only for a second. Falling rain and rolling thunder had been echoing throughout the castle halls all morning. Making the connection between dots only took him a glance down at Sora’s bruised ears before he realized why Sora was gripping him so strongly.

“R-Riku…” Sora sniffed, releasing one of his arms to scrub away some tears before winding it around his friend once again. “I’m scared.”

_That’s right- he’s afraid of lightning. I should have remembered that,_ Riku scolded himself as he squeezed the prince against his chest protectively. The action shielded Sora’s eyes from anything else around them, narrowing his world to one point of focus the way that Aqua had taught him to do whenever things got too overwhelming for him.

“Don’t be. I’ll protect you.”

The sky shook with more thunder. When Sora basically tackled him in fright, Riku was ready for the impact, stabilizing the two of them to remain mostly upright.

“It’s okay, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, okay?” Carefully encircling Sora in his arms once again, he whispered to make sure that the noise wouldn’t be too loud. “Don’t listen to the sounds outside. The lightning won’t hurt you while I’m here, ‘cause it knows that I’d kill it if it touched you.”

“Really?” Sora whispered back.

Riku nodded. “Really. I don’t care that I don’t have a sword, I’ll kill it with my hands if I have to.”

The benefit of the both of them being so young was that they believed those words with one hundred percent certainty. Neither Sora nor Riku were aware that lightning was an element far more powerful than they could ever dream of facing if it did decide to attack them, but they also didn’t know that it had no intentions of doing so in the first place.

All natural elements had an allegiance with the fates. Any that would dare harm the changeling boy and his human liege would likely be cast into the void for many years as punishment for such a blatant show of favoritism towards the darkness that they were trying to balance. Even the element of darkness itself wouldn’t try to kill them if possible. It hadn’t had a say in Maleficent throwing off the balance; darkness didn’t want to rule any more than the other elements did, which is to say, they didn’t. The universe was not meant to be dominated.

“You’re safe with me, Sora. That’s a promise.” Riku said confidently. “Look at me.”

Sora obeyed, not thinking about it too hard.

“Do you believe me?”

After only a second of deliberation, Sora vigorously gave a returning head nod.

“Good. Now, listen to my breathing, and try to match it so we can get your heart rate down.” He commanded.

They spent a good ten minutes breathing in sync. Riku went deliberately slow, much slower than a normal breathing pattern to force him out of panic mode. He couldn’t keep up with the fast-paced tempo of crying and breathe with him like that at the same time. The tears gradually stopped coming as often, only slipping out of Sora’s eyes every other blink instead of every one.

In his head, Riku rifled through everything that he could think of that may be able to distract him from the conditions outside.

Though he’d never experienced a fear of lightning, Riku had been afraid of the dark when he was very little, as odd as it was for a user of darkness to admit. He remembered what it was like to feel that fear gripping his heart when he was surrounded by shadows.

What did Aqua do when he’d been too afraid to go to sleep?

His memories of the time were old and faded, despite not really being that far in the past. Only the quiet words of the lullaby that she sang surfaced when he called for his recollections. The melody was almost lost on him.

But Sora’s sobs pulled at his heart the more he heard them, and simply, it was impossible for him to sit there doing nothing if he knew one more way to help.

Lyrics developed themselves at the tip of his tongue as if on instinct.

_“Les rêves qui sommeillent dans nos cœurs…”_ He began, a bit small, self-consciously.

His fingers found purchase in the soft strands of Sora’s hair, threading in and out of the locks in what he hoped was a comforting rhythm.

_“Au creux de la nuit,”_

A small sniffle came from the prince. He curled the fabric of Riku’s shirt up in his fist, but he showed no signs of discomfort from the words. Encouraged, Riku started to sing with more intent, losing himself in the song.

_“Habillent nos chagrins de bonheur,_

_Dans le doux secret de l’oubli…_

_Ecoute ton rêve, et demain,”_

Riku gave a smile.

_“Le soleil brillera toujours…”_

Blinking up at him, Sora’s sky-blue eyes seemed to glitter even in the dark of the pantry. He brought one hand down from the prince’s hair to wipe away the water still lingering on his cheeks with a careful touch.

_“Même si ton cœur a l’âme en peine,_

_Il faut y croire quand même…_

_Le rêve d’une vie,”_

His throat was tight for some reason.

_“C’est l’amour…”_

The song was foreign and unpracticed on his tongue, though still familiar, carrying on it the inflections of Aqua’s voice that he’d very nearly forgotten until just then, how it’d seemed to drive away the darkness ‘til was far away and unable to hurt him. Maybe some of that reached Sora. At least, he hoped it did.

And then what he’d done caught up with him in a brilliant explosion of horror that shook Riku’s very soul.

He buried his glowing pink face in Sora’s hair, reassured that he wouldn’t be able to see anything from that position. How could he have just done that? Why didn’t he have enough presence of mind to stop himself? It was like the common sense filter in his brain had decided to stop working as soon as he heard Sora’s crying.

The two of them were quite the sight now: Sora was clinging to his friend on the ground, tear tracks still drying on his surprised face as Riku went back to stroking his hair in long intervals for lack of better things to do.

Riku stiffened when Sora mumbled something unintelligible to his chest.

“Can you,” The prince hiccupped. “Can you keep singing, please? It sounds nice.”

Once the message got across, Riku grew even more flustered, but he softened his expression after discovering that Sora was being serious. “Of course.”

So he continued.

Fully enamored with the song, Sora didn’t notice the next flash of thunder through the castle.

\---

It took a while longer, but eventually, Riku was able to calm Sora enough that he let himself be led by the hand from his place on the floor of the pantry to the kitchen, where Riku spent some time rummaging through the cabinets in search of something to make for the little prince to cheer him up. Sora pulled back one of the chairs around the compact breakfast table and watched while fiddling absentmindedly with his hands.

“You want a sandwich?” Riku asked, pulling some bread out of the drawer.

He shook his head. Shrugging, Riku set it on the counter and continued looking for something he might like.

On most days, the kitchen would provide whatever Sora wanted readily. A fresh meal would already be prepared for him when he walked in, laid out on the table at the usual seat, and it was nice. Not great, or anything. Homecooked food was still better.

Riku agreed, which was why he was currently puzzling out where everything was to make something much heartier and more satisfying than the kitchen could whip up on its own.

He wasn’t an incredibly experienced chef, being six years old and all, although one can’t live behind the kitchens of a palace as big as the Destiny Castle and not learn how to make _something._

Looking out the window at the gently falling rain, inspiration suddenly hit.

“Ah, I know just the thing!” Riku said to himself. Spinning around, he sent what he hoped was an encouraging smile to his friend. “You’re not lactose intolerant, right, Sora? I wouldn’t want to kill you by accident.”

“No… at least, I don’t think so.”

“Guess we’ll find out.” He chuckled.

A short moment later had Riku pulling a bottle of milk out of one of the cabinets, layers of cold steam rolling out over his arms as if the inside had been coated with ice, which, he supposed it was. This part of Sora’s quarters wasn’t quite as sentient as some others, but the faint hum of magic could still be felt on its surfaces. A cabinet of magic ice was far from out of the question.

Cooking pots of various sizes turned out to be stacked neatly in the corner next a rack of drying spices. Riku grabbed a sturdy one a bit on the smaller side, taking a moment to properly hang it on the chains dangling down from the chimney before stocking the shallow pit beneath it with wood. He unstuck a tiny bit of darkness to do a quick fire spell. As the flickering glow began to crackle in the room, Sora closed his eyes, feeling all of a sudden like he was floating weightlessly in a pool of warm water until Riku calmly retracted his magic once again.

Something in his chest sank when it disappeared. He didn’t know how to explain it, it was _weird,_ yet the feeling of Riku’s magic intertwining in his own was always so inviting and comfortable, as if he was crawling into bed after a long day of adventuring.

Sometimes he just wished that it didn’t have to go away.

He was shaken out of his head when a calm voice could be heard coming from around the corner. “This is something that Aqua and Ven make for me sometimes when I can’t sleep.” Riku hummed. “It’s insanely good, trust me on that.”

His location was revealed as he swept in from the direction of the pantry, carrying a large jar of dried flowers that Sora didn’t recognize. Most flowers were relatively unknown to him unless they’d appeared somewhere in the playrooms, and the kinds in there were typically rare magical breeds that spit fire or sang when you talked to them. These ones appeared perfectly normal and non-sentient, likely a spice with little other purpose. Riku made an effort to hide the label when he shouldered past. Even if Sora had read the label, he still wouldn’t know what it was, if that was what he was worried about.

“So, you’re making us cooked milk.” He said somewhat teasingly.

Riku took it for the bait that it was, scoffing at Sora while he set out to measuring the flowers into a thin cloth pouch. “Well, _yes_ , that’s what it is by definition, but I can’t say that I’d call it ‘cooked milk’. There’s more to it than that.”

Sora tilted his head, dropping the tone in favor of genuine curiosity. “Like what?”

“For starters, you don’t drink it plain unless you really want to; Aqua almost always puts in honey for me even if she doesn’t have time to add anything else. You can make it with a ton of other stuff too, like cinnamon, vanilla, rose, lavender… anything that’s sweet and edible.” A stray lock of Riku’s hair was pushed behind his ear with a slow movement. “I’m going to try something that may or may not work depending on if my magic wants to cooperate.”

Over at the cooking pot, Riku emptied the bottle of fresh milk into it, using a wooden spoon to stir it lightly before stepping back to the pouch of flowers.

“May or may not, huh? Why do I get the feeling that I’m going to be dying from more than just lactose intolerance?”

“Oh shush.”

Despite the leftover exhaustion from his panic attacks, Sora found that the ability to laugh had not abandoned him.

The sound caused Riku to jolt almost imperceptibly, which for a second made him want to stop, readying his hand to muffle the giggling in a half-abortive gesture, but then he turned around.

And Sora saw something there.

It was the moon. Framed by soft silver starlight, his smile was the clear centerpiece of the night sky, the antithesis to Sora’s bright sun. He blinked only once and it was already gone.

Riku wouldn’t say it out loud. Singing had used up the last of his dignity, and so he wasn’t keen on sinking further, ducking his head sheepishly to pretend that stirring the milk was suddenly too interesting to divide his attention between that and Sora. The message was clear all the same: _I’m glad you’re feeling better._

A matching grin met Riku the next time they made eye contact, as much of an answer as he’d need to understand.

They chatted idly back and forth until the milk was a little bit under boiling. Hopping off of where he was perched on the counter, Riku grabbed the pouch of dried flowers in a fist, scurried to remove the pot from the flame, then cast it into the hot liquid, setting a mental timer in his head for about five minutes.

This was the part that he was supposed to use magic for. He explained to Sora a little as he worked, dodging ever so strategically around why he wasn’t taking his darkness out of its cage again. Lately, he’d been studying up on household magic, which was the kind that even people born without natural stores of magic could use in a pinch. It was tied to neither the light nor the darkness, a concept that fascinated him— Riku found himself daydreaming often about what it would be like if he could replace his darkness with a thing so harmless, if he could be _himself_ unapologetically, not hurting anyone or Sora in the meantime.

So who was he to turn down this perfect opportunity to try out what he’d been learning?

Correspondences really weren’t that hard to remember if he just put extra time into it. Instead of risking a sleep or calm spell that may potentially go wrong when Sora accepted it, he’d much, much rather beat it into his head that Chamomile could be used for good sleep, or that Lavender had anti-anxiety effects… besides, studying was not something Riku was a stranger to. One more subject can’t hurt.

He searched around for mugs to put the drinks into once the chamomile bag was done steeping. Over his shoulder, he asked Sora to head to his room ahead of him.

Sora hesitated. He glanced quickly between Riku and the doorway, like he was afraid that if he went, Riku would disappear.

“Don’t worry. I’ll finish this up in no time. Go get in bed, okay? And don’t look at me like that, I _know_ you’re freezing right now.” Riku chided. Sheepishness overtook the prince then, causing him to kick his feet at the floor.

The poor thing was shivering. As if Riku wouldn’t _notice._

Sora reluctantly headed towards the door, Goofy and Donald perking up to follow him as soon as they noticed the movement. He trusted that the two animals would keep him on track for long enough to crawl under the covers and get nice and comfy.

With that, he focused on the pot, readying himself for performing a different kind of magic than he was used to. The material components were all prepared now that the milk was infused with chamomile. Wanting to move quickly so as not to let it cool, Riku rubbed his hands together and tried to feel the energy moving kinetically from palm to palm. He positioned them over the pot, attempting to concentrate on the words of the spell.

Riku cracked his eyes open. When nothing exploded, a deep feeling of happiness bloomed in his chest.

Maybe not all of his magic would have to be offensive if he didn’t want it to be.

He rushed to pour the milk into his gathered mugs, setting both of those down on a tray, and dragged the old iron door over the fire pit to stifle the flames. Right before Riku was going to make a break for Sora’s room, something new caught his eye.

Sitting on the breakfast table was a little plate stacked high with hot and sugary cinnamon rolls absolutely _smothered_ in gooey frosting.

If he’d silently added the plate to his tray, thinking giddily of how much Sora would love them, no one would be around to accuse him of it.

\---

Vanitas took a small step inside his cousin’s room, resisting the urge to let out a whistle at the sight laid out in front of him.

“Like the world’s most delicious blackmail on a silver fucking platter.” He whispered.

Well, well, well. Based on the way that most palace staff spoke of Riku, Vanitas had been anticipating a distant, coolly-mannered stare to greet him upon entering, reminiscent of a wolf’s calculating gaze. This was decidedly less deadly. Although, no less interesting.

The boy that he was potentially going to mentor wasn’t even awake. He was passed out in Sora’s bed, leaning against the prince with his head resting on top of the brown mop of his hair.

It was funny enough that Vanitas was almost tempted to laugh— in any other circumstance, getting so up close and personal to the prince would be considered punishable at best, and a reason for execution at worst. Execution wasn’t necessary in this instance, as Sora seemed not to be in any real danger. In fact, he looked quite satisfied with himself, half of a dopey grin squished against Riku’s shoulder in his sleep.

Killing Riku would more trouble than it would be worth just to wipe that dumb expression off Sora’s face. There were far more efficient ways of doing so, and Vanitas was uninterested in his wasting time or energy.

Ah, speaking of wastes of his energy, his attention wandered to the object barely balancing between their laps. A book by the looks of it, thick, yellow, and opened only enough to allow Riku’s fist to sit awkwardly over the pages. The covers struggled to close on his hand, finding that they could not phase through in spite of their best efforts.

They must’ve been reading when they drifted off. What fucking nerds.

When Vanitas was their age, he’d’ve despaired over someone catching him in the act of reading, lest they get the idea that he- _ugh_ \- enjoyed it. Then again, he wouldn’t be ‘caught’ doing much of anything. He was too fast. Too _smart._ Nobody, and he meant nobody, was able to get the jump on Vanitas, even as a child.

This kid had a lot to live up to in order to study under him. So far, Vanitas could think of about six different ways that Riku was already failing miserably.

If Riku’d actually had the instincts of a warrior: sharp, focused, and always alert, Vanitas wouldn’t have gotten into the room in time to find them sleeping in the first place. By the time an enemy reached the doorway, nine times out of ten, the battle was already lost. Becoming a knight was going to put an immense strain on him in mind and body to always be hypervigilant.

Ordinarily, Vanitas would call it quits right there. Ruining some kid’s life over a childhood dream seemed like it’d almost be too cruel for his taste. But as he turned back to the exit, something long and undeniably red caught his eye.

_Was that…?_

Alright. He’d give the boy a pass, only this once, if the fates were going to be breathing down his neck like little bitches about it. Any time after that would be a strike on his chart. (Hey, he liked maintaining the order of the universe as much as the next guy, but even he had limits. Riku wasn’t getting special treatment for being a kid of prophecy.)

Vanitas leisurely approached the bedside, still thinking on how ridiculous it was that the fates themselves were now encouraging him to train a boy that hadn’t noticed him standing over the godsdamned prince yet. What if he’d been an assassin? Well, he was an assassin, but still, it was the principle of the thing. Riku was quite lucky that Vanitas had no motivation to kill his own cousin.

Before getting down to business, he figured that it’d be a good idea to take inventory of anything else out of the ordinary.

There was a simple-looking serving tray next to the bed that had a few empty dishes sitting forgotten across its surface. Vanitas raised an eyebrow, looking inside for no particular reason, just to find that they were empty save for a few drops at the bottom. It smelled good. Sweet. The plate to the left of them looked pretty tasty, too. Vanitas considered eating it for a quick snack— he hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and it was getting quite late for his standard, the sun almost peak in the sky behind the rain. He decided against it at last second. Ceramics tasted better with lead-based paint, in his opinion.

Disregarding it to walk to the foot of the bed, he stared blandly at the two sleeping children.

Riku had yet to react to his presence at all beyond twitching his nose slightly. Even that could most likely be attributed to Sora’s hair being so close to his breathing passages, a sentiment that he could relate to from his brief interactions with Ventus’ incredible fluffy volume. Aside from that, the main thought in his head revolved around how much training would have to go into a candidate this dense. Vanitas could already feel the headache coming on from behind his temples.

Although… credit where credit was due. He supposed it _was_ a mark in the boy’s favor that Sora looked so comfortable near him. A lesser man would call it at that and head home, agreeing to Ventus’ terms without much fuss.

Well he wasn’t a lesser man.

Since when had Vanitas ever been known to take the easy route out of a situation? He was _bored,_ and testing Riku’s abilities while he was here sounded like it’d be a hell of a good time.

Vanitas nodded to himself. Time to get to it, then. There was a litany of different traps fluttering through his mind at lightning speed, each one funnier than the last, and oh, how was he supposed to choose between all these brilliant options? Being stealthy had never been this easy before. No matter which trap he did decide to set up, he had a feeling that he would remain unchallenged for the duration of it.

It was all too simple for Vanitas to lug his cousin out of bed and tie him to the door in chains of darkness (not tight— he was a monster, not a criminal). Sora was sleeping so soundly that he didn’t notice a thing, shifting only a fraction of an inch the whole time to mumble something too soft for him to hear. Slumped in the now emptier bed, Riku was perfectly unaware of his predicament, and as everything fell into place, Vanitas smiled.

“You want to be a knight, little boy?” He snarked, preparing to cast a raucous noise spell next to Riku’s ear. “You’ll need to be awake when the bad guys come knocking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing Vanitas I really do


	8. Earn Your Fangs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The timeline of the fic starts speeding up a little bit in this chapter. I tried to make it flow more naturally in editing today, but if it feels too clunky, drop a comment below and I'll see what I can do to fix it.
> 
> Otherwise, thanks so much to everyone who's left comments and kudos! It really means the world to me, you guys!!! Without further ado, please enjoy!

From a young age in the Destiny Islands, the children were warned not to bother the sea dragons.

They weren’t common by any means. Sightings tended to be few and far in between, though there was still evidence of their existence, leaving piles of destruction and floating bones in their wake wherever they dwelled in the tourmaline depths. Swimming in the crystal-clear waters of the higher tides or fishing on the docks was pastime that the majority of the youth took part in from the time that they were able to walk, so, just in case of an attack, they would always be cautioned: don’t touch the dragons, don’t look them in the eye, and don’t _ever_ anger them.

Perhaps Vanitas would have followed the advice had he known of Riku’s draconic blood. His kind was even _more_ dangerous, more stubborn and sturdy by far than his nautical cousins. The mountainous dragons were not quick to anger. But once they’d been disturbed, that was the end.

He couldn’t have known to heed the words. Not even Riku knew the extent of his capabilities, just that when he’d opened his eyes, he saw his best friend in danger and the culprit standing haughtily right within range of his limbs.

A rush of power had surged into the changeling’s veins on pure instinct, darkness consuming his small form from head to toe. Before Vanitas could even blink in surprise, the battle was through; he’d been punched clean through the doors of Sora’s room to smack painfully on the stone brick hallway outside, too winded even to yell when his body collapsed onto the floor.

Sora gaped from where he’d woken up strapped to the other doors. The chains around him disappeared once Vanitas was incapacitated, allowing him to safely drop to his feet.

And that was that. Riku blinked as the darkness faded, as though he was unsure of what just happened himself, then there was only enough time for the prince to shout when Riku suddenly fainted as well. Everyone aside from him had been knocked unconscious in less than ten minutes. That left him, the sleep-addled and distraught prince, to deal with a mess that he couldn’t begin to qualify fixing all on his own.

\---

Captain Vanitas had never been outmatched before.

He was a brilliant tactician and a decorated battle veteran. He’d graduated from the knights’ training course at the absolute top, having broken records left and right both in practices and on the field. And ever since he’d managed to bring peace to the borders of the Destiny Islands on their most recent ambush, Vanitas had been considered one of the most valuable members of the Royal Knights.

The evidence of such was always worn proudly at the front of his cloak— his shining golden crown pin was the hallmark of the dedication that he’d put into rising the ranks, all in the name of helping his uncles stabilize their new nation, as well as maintaining the noble pursuit of keeping the firstborn of the Leonheart Strife family line out of danger.

Then, there Riku was, shining in all of his six-year-old glory as the _one_ person who’d managed to send him to the infirmary in the entire history of Vanitas’ military career.

If Vanitas was stumped about it, then he was nothing compared to Aqua and Ventus. The two scarcely believed it when they were told that Riku wasn’t coming home the night of the incident by reasons of being held for assault of a royal soldier. Riku was strong and determined in his own way, but where the _hell_ he’d learned to do something like that was far past either of them.

They swore up and down that Riku was usually much more well-mannered; He wouldn’t hurt anything without good reason, they pleaded, desperately hoping that Riku wouldn’t be forbidden from entering the knights’ training program in the wake of this new happenstance. Vanitas didn’t react much to the words. His golden eyes were spaced out somewhere else, never meeting Ventus’ no matter how the servant boy strained to.

As for Riku himself, he only watched the horrors unfolding before him, trying not to let it sink in that the purple bruises spreading over Vanitas’ pale chest had in fact been caused by his own hands. It was better not to feel. Keeping his mind carefully blank was the only thing that prevented his darkness from swelling up and out of him like an overboiling pot.

He let his mind settle on the familiar sound of his brother’s voice and the soft grip of Sora’s hand, letting all thoughts unrelated to those slip out of his consciousness.

Standing next to Riku, Sora was handling the situation better than he was, having recovered from the initial shock once it was confirmed that nobody had come to any life-threatening harm. Finding oneself chained to the wall was typically quite stressful, and considering that he wasn’t feeling it that much, the prince was doing fantastic in relative terms.

At least he wasn’t overly tense like everyone else in the room, nor was he experiencing the pain-induced rage that the darkness falling off of Vanitas signified. Sora wasn’t feeling much of anything. He was just waiting for whatever his parents were doing to be over so he could get back to reading with Riku. To him, it was extraordinarily unfair that they’d been interrupted by someone literally breaking into his room, and it was _Riku,_ not the captain, getting scrutinized for it. Vanitas was the one who’d showed up unannounced, tied him to the door, and then surprise-attacked his best friend! That wasn’t something people were supposed to _do!_

Heedless of their son’s irk, the kings of the Destiny Islands continued talking loudly over medical details with the resident nurse in front of him and ignored his silent attempts to catch their attention. He listened in on the conversation as much as he could just to spite them, though what they were saying sounded less like English and more like Hungarian for all he could understand of it.

Sora grunted in frustration. Of course the first time that he’d ever been allowed outside of his room on a non-holiday had to be for something like this.

It was right after a thunderstorm; he was sleep-heavy, not in the mood for formalities, and the worst thing yet, he couldn’t bring himself to enjoy the new scenery at all when his best friend was so down. Riku was totally out of it at his side, only reacting minutely to the twitches of Sora’s fingers every now and again.

He wouldn’t feel right celebrating the small freedom of being outdoors… or rather, out of _his_ door, without Riku there to laugh and make jokes with him. Squeezing his hand was the closest he could get to explaining that to him as of now.

A few moments later, the conversation between his parents and the nurse ceased, and she gently ushered everyone away from the captain’s bed in preparation to cast her spells. Trailing behind her was an assortment of enchanted herb bundles that presumably would help aide the process, floating to their places around her hands where she lay them on Vanitas’ wounds.

He hissed in discomfort. Clearly, the contact upset him more than any actual pain that the touch would cause, as he turned his head away to growl that he wasn’t fragile and that she could press harder. She ignored him. Filling the room in gentle spring green, the glow from the spell seeped into his skin. Incorporeal vines wrapped around the floating herbs, as if to draw energy from them, before spreading smoothly over the damage.

When the wheezing rattle of Vanitas’ breath returned to its usual smooth cadence, the relief that could be felt throughout the room was so thick it was tangible.

Sora was glad that Vanitas was healed, even if he _was_ still a little miffed from being tied up. Bygones, bygones and all… Maybe he could let it go if he apologized. To him and Riku both, that was.

As soon as the haze of pain faded from Vanitas’ eyes, he straightened up, scanning furiously until he found his cloak. The shirt that he’d been wearing beforehand was completely unusable. Visibly tattered to pieces, it was soaked in shivering darkness, and while darkness was not usually much of a problem for him, this was _Riku’s_ magic. It was just as hostile as it had been when he’d cast it, meaning that putting the ruined clothing on would likely sap the energy that he’d replenished not a minute prior.

Ventus helped him secure the black velvet cloak around his shoulders while stubbornly beating Vanitas’ annoyed swats away from him. The captain was sick of being manhandled by this point, but that meant little to him; all of Ven’s friends got coddled eventually, no matter how averse to his help. He was caring like that, unable to hold himself back from taking care of someone once he added them to his social circle.

That lasted until Vanitas’ flat palm smacked Ven’s head sideways and pushed him away from the cot. Silence fell over all present, everyone wincing slightly in sympathy, when Ventus cradled his stinging pink cheek in one hand and started laughing.

The tension broke.

Both kings looked relieved that they wouldn’t have to be the ones to talk first. As Aqua and Ventus both descended to ruffle his hair and scold him for his stupidity, Sora shot a quick look over to Riku.

He was starting to come back to himself, if the short, very quiet chuckle he gave at the sight of his older brother getting slapped was any indication.

The rest of Riku’s time being held there was spent being questioned by Kings Leon and Strife. They made it clear that he wasn’t in any trouble, considering how Vanitas admitted he was trespassing (to which King Strife blinked incredulously, not even sure where to begin telling the captain off) and had more or less provoked the attack upon him. Riku relaxed a little more knowing that he wouldn’t be sent to the dungeon any time soon. After he was done giving his full account of events, the kings motioned for the nurse to give him an ether, which he didn’t really need, but accepted with a polite nod. Turning down free healing items was not something that a servant was wont to do.

And then they turned to Captain Vanitas, waiting to see what his thoughts on the situation were.

“So, uh, did you decide whether or not you’ll accept him? That _is_ what you were there for…” Ventus hesitantly asked.

Vanitas focused his gaze up at him. “Are you kidding me?” He snapped, angry that his answer wasn’t obvious. “Darkness like that’s a liability if left untrained. Of course I’m gonna teach him.”

The adults’ eyes drifted to where Riku was still standing hand-in-hand with the prince. Hanging his head, he shrank into the shadows, unused to all the attention.

“When you turn eight. No sooner, no later.”

And so it was done.

\---

That evening found Riku staring up at the ceiling, thinking carefully over everything that’d happened.

He brough his hands up in front of his face. Through his fingers, the torchlight from the wall sconces filtered painfully into his eyes like shards of microscopic glass, and if he looked past them, he could see Ventus raising an eyebrow at him from where he was doing some late-night sewing.

The darkness had long since recoiled into the tight space where he kept it, but it still felt like his arms were swathed in shadow whenever he moved. Checking every few seconds didn’t result in any changes. Each time, they were bare. Still, the sensation seemed to haunt him. He felt every inch of his body like it was covered in the thin veneer of rippling black and purple flames. An image surfaced in his mind of Vanitas’ face as he pushed him away with force he’d never known he was capable of before.

Part of him was exhilarated by the absolute _power_ that had come with the break.

It’d been so long since he last allowed his full store of darkness to be freed. All that strength, all that speed— that certainly hadn’t been present back then. Riku wanted to feel it again. With power like that, he’d never have to worry about having the strength necessary to keep his friends safe.

Although, the more logical part of Riku knew that he couldn’t allow his darkness to break free again, not if he wanted to keep himself from hurting those around him. What if he’d accidentally hit Ven with an attack like that? Or Aqua? Vanitas was ultimately able to recover good as new, but the two of them would hardly be so lucky. While his mother had plenty of war experience, she was retired, and hadn’t been in any real danger since she’d adopted Ven. And Ven hadn’t even trained under a master!

Sickeningly, his stomach clenched when he thought of Sora. _Sora_ was in the room with him then. What if Riku had struck him instead of Vanitas? He doubted that the afternoon’s proceedings would’ve gone nearly as smoothly. For one, the kings would’ve taken the opportunity to fillet him like a fine cut of meat, and if that didn’t kill him horribly enough, Riku would probably die of pure shame.

“Silver piece for your thoughts?” Ventus cut into the silence.

Riku groaned like he was about to be sick, rolling over to curl up on his side. “You wouldn’t want them.” He answered curtly.

“Maybe not, I can’t exactly know without hearing it first… but it’s good to talk when you’re upset. Talking to Aqua always makes me feel better when _I’m_ down.” The servant prompted. “Besides, I’m always willing to lend an ear for my favorite brother.”

Riku furrowed his brow. “I’m your only brother.”

“And my favorite one.”

There was no real way to argue against that logic. Ventus was so annoying to be mad at sometimes, because Riku couldn’t stay mad at him for longer than a few seconds. That was a trait he shared with the prince, if a comparison had to be made. Both of them were so frustratingly _sweet_ that staying angry at them just made him feel like a horrible person.

“Well, I don’t want to talk about it.” Riku snapped, attempting to save face. His stomach twisted even further.

Flitting his eyes back to the shirt he was patching, Ventus sighed heavily, as though remembering that he’d had this conversation before. He didn’t push the subject. “Suit yourself. Go take a bath or something, it’ll take your mind off of things.”

While it was slightly easier now that Aqua allowed him to bathe by himself, Ventus knew perfectly well that Riku would rather do almost anything else; for all the times that he’d needed to force him in the water basin kicking and screaming, you’d think that a guy would learn.

But he did like the idea of getting up and leaving, so he made the decision then and there to go sulk in the washroom instead, where Ven wouldn’t try to bother him.

“Maybe I _will_.” Riku huffed.

Ven rolled his eyes at the childishness, but hey, Riku thought that he might be entitled to act a bit petty upon occasion. Especially this occasion.

His brother wouldn’t understand the emotions inside him. The darkness, the struggle. Denizens of light were good and pure. They didn’t need to think about such things the same way that he did.

Ven could think that Riku was childish all he wanted— that was fine with him, as long as Ven remained ignorant to his pain, staying the caring, optimistic person that he always was. Riku would never want that to change on his behalf.

It didn’t take long to get to where he needed to go. Anyone he encountered on his way through the common room hurried to let him pass, remembering from previous occasions that he could and would barrel right over them if given the chance. He preferred to present himself courteously about ninety-eight percent of the time, for the sake of his career just as much as it for the sake of being polite, but Riku was no saint, especially when he was in a bad mood. The washroom was thankfully unoccupied when he entered.

Even with his expanded choice of bathtubs, he went into the same one in the far corner that Aqua used to drag him in out of habit. He didn’t take off his clothes after closing the door. As he had no actual intentions to take a bath, it was pointless. Instead, he made a beeline for the small vanity in the corner, scooching out the seat to rest himself in so he wouldn’t have to sit on the floor there.

On the vanity was an empty washbowl that prevented him from putting his head down.

Just great.

Whatever he was expecting to happen definitely didn’t. The swirling thoughts did not disappear once separated from Ventus, they were still as sharp and prodding as they’d been before, though now he was guiltily tempted to smack his face against the wall for being so terrible.

Riku had almost hurt a lot of people that he cared about today, and the only thing he could do afterwards was hurt them more. Why couldn’t he just be normal for once? Why was his heart so… _dark?_

Vanitas’ earlier words rang in his ears, echoing the unfeeling, blatant tone condemning him. _Liability. Darkness like that is a liability._

That conversation had been so polarizing. Under any other circumstances, Riku would’ve been ecstatic to hear that he was accepted. It’s not like he’d wanted to be a knight ever since he could remember, right? Something like that should’ve been a reason to celebrate. Maybe in a different world, he’d be sharing cake with his family, smiling, happy… but he knew that Vanitas hadn’t taken his case because he thought Riku was worthy. He thought that Riku was a liability, in his own words.

Riku had only recently learned what that word meant, while digging through the library with Aqua a couple weeks ago, and from what he understood of it, that meant that Vanitas thought he was a danger to the castle. Well- Riku agreed, obviously- but it still hurt. Nobody _wanted_ to be a danger to anything.

He found himself sympathizing with the monsters in all the stories that he’d read. Despite the fact that they were supposed to be villains, he wondered; if given kindness and time, would they be monsters at all? Maybe some or all of them were actually good people deep down, just stifled by the expectations and traditions of their species. Or maybe they were more like Riku, unable to stop the darkness that fueled their actions no matter how hard they tried.

Monsters had no say in being what they were. Perhaps, he thought, if he could ever get away with it, he’d try not to hurt any before at least talking to them. Unless they threatened to hurt Sora, in which case there were no exceptions.

That included himself. It wouldn’t be fair to prescribe a monster to that rule if he didn’t follow it to the letter on his own.

Shuffling his boots on the soggy floor, Riku was suddenly compelled to look into the vanity mirror, and then he realized that his inclusion may have been far too correct, as he laid a horrified hand over a mouth he hadn't realized had been swarming with darkness. Something greeted him in his reflection that he was almost sure hadn't been there that morning.

_Monster. Monster. Monster. Monster._

_Liability._

\---

Smiling widely became a bit of a rarity for Riku in the years following that night.

He didn’t know how or when it happened exactly, but he couldn’t do much to get rid of them once they’d grown in. They were a part of him now. “They” being the enlarged, pointed fangs poking out below his otherwise normal row of teeth.

Not a whole lot of people had fangs around the Destiny Islands— among the ones that did, he guessed that they kept them well hidden, considering how many people in the kingdom where users of light. The act of having fangs alone would be enough to cause panic or be seen as frightening, strange, and foreign, which was something already well confirmed to him just from watching Vanitas talk to civilians. Fear-stricken eyes would linger on his maniacal grin for a bit too long, and they swallowed nervously until the captain would tuck his knife-like incisors away.

Riku tended to catch his hand drifting to his mouth during those moments, hoping that no one could see his own smaller pair carefully concealed behind his lips. While little, clearly the fangs of a child, he knew that the difference meant nothing to someone with none.

It was only by some miracle that his mom and brother never noticed. Neither did most folks for that matter, as long as he was careful not to let his emotions show on his face.

The only ones who’d ever seen them were the captain, for whom there was no reason to hide from, having his own set… and the prince, because he was nosy as all heck, and wouldn’t mind his business for more than a minute unless heavily bribed.

Sora couldn’t exactly be _blamed_ for that. As one of his few sources of news, Riku conceded that Sora was entitled to a few of his secrets. Even the ones he hadn’t wanted him to find out about.

What had ended up getting him to croak was nothing short of Sora’s infamous puppy eyes. Those things were so shiny and adorable that they should be illegal, or at the very least registered as potentially dangerous enchanted objects. He stood no chance between that and Sora’s stupid “prince voice”, a tactic that he’d discovered as of late.

When they’d first met, Sora had been way too young to really understand what his role as prince of the Destiny Islands meant. He got the idea that he was important to his family’s line. That in itself was obvious. What he hadn’t considered was what it meant in relation to Riku, who was training to be his personal bodyguard, Royal Knight, and escort to and from the palace after he turned eighteen.

Riku was, as his knight-in-training, legally required to do whatever Sora asked for.

Sora didn’t tend to abuse it. He was still strict about letting Riku make his own choices, because ordering him to do everything was not his style, thank-you-very-much. But the fact that he didn’t utilize his power didn’t mean he _couldn’t._ And in incredibly specific instances, he took a serious tone of voice that Riku was very aware meant business.

To date, he’d used it about six times. Once was to dare him to eat some weird thing that he found in the living castle for losing a bet. All the rest, except for number six, were demands to hear various staff gossip whenever Riku insisted that it was too dumb to care about. For the most part, he’d long since given up on trying to discourage it. Why Sora was so interested in the drama of laundrymaids, he had no idea.

There was an almost three-year-long running saga that he’d been keeping track of for him about one of the girls that he eavesdropped while doing his weekly laundry. The prince was always bursting with excitement for the latest happenings of theirs, which were usually dumb lovestruck ramblings over one of the archer women, and while Riku considered it beneath him to listen to something so stupid, Sora ate it up like it was the finest gourmet coconut cake. He never would have guessed that Sora could be such a hopeless romantic.

But he was in the middle of a story, so his customary teasing could wait for later.

The end of the line for him was his very first day training under the captain. Riku had been able to hide his weird… deformity, for almost two years by that point, but it all came crashing down on him when he’d visited his best friend after practice. Tired, sweaty, and overworked, Riku was in no condition to think properly.

Looking back on it, he could pinpoint the relative time that Sora had started to get suspicious. Weird half-glances were thrown his way every few moments. Originally, he’d interpreted them as concern for how tired he was, knowing that the prince didn’t like to see him in pain, though it was mixed with something more long-term than that. The question that he asked had been plaguing him for a while.

Actually asking what was wrong was met with adamant refusal for an answer. Riku hadn’t liked the way that Sora was eying him up and down, analyzing his form for a giveaway. Sora only doubled down his efforts, giving him the pleading blue gaze that he was known for. With only that and a soft demand for Riku to “please, tell me,” he had Riku wrapped around his finger.

At the order, his mouth had fallen open, exposing the pair of sharp teeth that he’d spent so long keeping hidden to the light of day.

Unexpectedly (or maybe the opposite), Sora gasped with glee when he saw what was being presented, reaching up to touch one with his thumb before he could think better of it. Red bubbled up on the pad of the appendage to absolutely no one’s surprise. Riku grabbed forcefully at the prince’s arm to yank it away from the danger, looking at him scoldingly, as if to say _why would you do that???_

He shrugged noncommittally. Unaware of the turbulent confusion coursing through the changeling, Sora simply wiped the blood off onto his shorts and casually urged Riku to drink his tea so it wouldn’t get cold.

Whatever had just happened didn’t compute in his brain at the time. In all honesty, he didn’t think it ever would. A reaction like that was so far out of his realm of calculated possibilities that he’d had no clue how to respond besides very slowly sipping the still-warm beverage.

The best explanation he could get out of Sora was a warm smile and pat on the shoulder. He’d say something cryptic along the lines of “You can smile around me, you know. I like seeing you happy”. Complete gibberish from what he could tell.

Even a year later, Riku had come no closer to understanding. He supposed that the only conclusion he could make was that Sora was an equal anomaly to him; one weird outlier for another.

\---

The fates stared silently at the two boys clashing their wooden swords together in the sand.

The small, walled-off beachfront connected to the young prince’s quarters was not the most practical place to practice sword fighting, though they were well aware of the fact that practicality was not what the two had in mind when initiating this spar. It was about the dance; the careful back-and-forth of weaving and dodging underneath the other’s strikes in time to come up and unleash their own. They aimed not to injure or kill as so many wielders did, but to understand the way they moved, all the intricate ways that the two could fit together in dynamic harmony.

Not much different from the fates’ own job. Affairs of the physical tended to reflect the astral. Or, was it perhaps the other way around? In any case, they saw the battle for what it was, which was a microcosm of their tapestry.

Rows and rows of endless stitches composed the lives of their subjects the same way that every movement created a battle. One thing was linked to the next, action and reaction, push and pull, create and destroy, rise and set. Riku began and ended with Sora so as Sora began and ended with Riku.

They existed as two completely opposing sides that blended into each other in the middle. Dawn could not come without the night to emerge from. If you’ve been following, the fates would trust you understand the converse, that dusk could not fall without a day to blanket in starry black.

It was fascinating to see how many ways a concept can manifest itself over the eons.

After so much time of being alive, the fates thought that they would’ve run out of things to marvel at, yet humanity and its subdivisions never ceased to amaze. A changeling with such an untraditional hoard, for example, was a spectacle amongst the elements…

A hoard like that could never bring abundance, luck, riches, or knowledge in any kind of _real_ sense. But the fates understood the appeal. Humans were adorable in how hard they tried, and though their lifespans were so short, they still sought out those things for their own, for the sake of themselves, their families, and their lovers. It was likely that the arrangement could work out quite well if the prince were to succumb to his curse and fall for the little dragon child.

The lengths that humans would go to in order to prove their love was comparable to that of the changelings’ unwavering devotion to their partners, which was saying a lot when taking into account a human life. Both had the grounds to shake the universe down to its core once they’d found the thing that suit them best— call it a spouse, as the humans do, or the changeling word of Khura, for “bonded”. All the same in the eyes of the fates.

Of course, if one considered the value of certain things, maybe a hoard of love was the best kind that could be accumulated through the ancient draconic practice of collecting.

Oh, but they digress. The eldest of the two was scarcely of nine years. Marriage was so far off for either of them that it was useless to speculate prospective partners now, even if the odds were skewed in a particular direction.

It would be risky for their plan if the prince was to fall for the changeling anyhow, what with the curse specifying the details of his heart. If Riku was to become prey to his own curse, then Sora’s heart would be prime for him to take, and they couldn’t have that, now could they? The balance of the universe would be at risk once again.

The fates’ good friend, love, was sure to handle that particular part of the tapestry just fine. Love was one of those magics that tended to do whatever it wanted regardless of their own interference, but they did not expect it to disappoint after millenniums of giving the fates such beautiful hearts to work with.

Sora and Riku’s tapestries were almost entirely completed now, even if time had yet to cover more than just their heads, and the empty spaces where their hearts would go were already being filled with the first luminescent beginnings of what love had in mind. The fates supposed that they’d just have to wait and see the final results of their toil along with the rest of the elements in due time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want you all to know that I wrote every fucking word of this fic in comic sans on my computer


	9. Bad Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof okay this chapter has a lot going on in terms of order of events, so as always, drop me a comment if it's too confusing so I can fix it up. To everyone who's left a comment: thank you!!!! Omg they literally make my day, I'm super glad that you guys are enjoying this so far!!! I love you all so much <3

Shortly after Riku officially concluded his first year of training, the kings sent word to their son that they had something to talk to him about, and that they expected to be payed a visit sometime within the week.

Sora clutched at the note that the kings had sent detailing the time he was supposed to be there, ignoring the slobber that Goofy’d gotten on it while bringing it from the main castle. He didn’t know exactly what they wanted from him this time. As far as he knew, he hadn’t done anything that his parents wouldn’t approve of in the last twenty-four hours, or if it he had, it wasn’t anything that they could know about without talking to Riku first. That was a moot point since Riku should still be with Vanitas for another…

What, twenty years? Thirty? A lifetime?

Throwing a glance to the grandfather clock that suddenly sprang into existence in the corner of his bedroom, he sighed. Riku would still be at practice for another hour and a half or so (not that anyone was counting). There’s no way that his dads could’ve talked to Riku already and gotten something out of him.

Vanitas ran his trainee under a pretty tight shift. Even the kings weren’t exempt to his rule of “no distractions during practice”, so it was unlikely that they’d wrangled dirt out of Riku before they wrote the summons anyway. And then there was the fact that Riku- in spite of his legal obligations- would keep Sora’s secrets under lock and key for as long as he could possibly get away with it. He wouldn’t have spilled for anything less than a direct and _very specific_ yes or no question.

“Legal loopholes, Sora.” Riku’s voice echoed in his mind, a memory of something he’d said after successfully hiding a secret trip to the castle gardens during his daily report. “I can’t lie, but that doesn’t mean I always have to tell the truth.”

Remembering put a smile on his face for a moment. He shook himself out of it.

Playfully, he ruffled Goofy’s fur and thanked him for bringing the note. The dog woofed, happy as always to be a help, then bounded off in the direction of the bed to nap for the rest of the afternoon.

He wondered what they needed him for.

\---

_Riku’s lungs were about to burst._

_“Step it up, you’re falling behind!” Vanitas taunted, hovering just a few steps in front of him even as he struggled to close the gap._

_Wind whipped around his head, obscuring the message to a baseline of angry noise that he vaguely understood to be the same as all the others so far. Vanitas didn’t have much actual advice to offer during these exercises. All he had were insults. His steel-capped boots pounding against the ground was the only thing he could hear past the wind tunnel around him, which he was grateful for at the moment. Both of them were going so fast that the scenery was reduced to a colorful smudge._

_The goal was right in front of him. All he had to do was reach the peak of the volcano before the captain. It was right there, just outside of his reach…_

_Vines and thick foliage kept slowing him down as he watched Vanitas dodge up and around them completely effortlessly. He was struggling to remain on his heels, doing so only by a bare margin. Green, black, and sweltering orange from the mountaintop ahead blurred in his vision until he could hardly tell his environment apart._

_And Riku was falling, falling, falling…_

He shuddered in Vanitas’ arms, trying to bury his fever in the cooling sensation of the captain’s constantly sub-zero body heat.

\---

Waking up by being dumped unceremoniously on the floor was becoming a routine for Riku these days, to the great panic of whichever poor person Vanitas decided to leave him with once he became too lazy to take him all the way to the infirmary. He had next to no patience for weakness; the fallout of their practices was entirely Riku’s problem as far as the captain was concerned.

Ventus was less than enthused to find his little brother unconscious and bleeding in front of him on the better practice days. Even someone as sadistic as Vanitas knew to take him to someone else when the damage was worse, usually sloughing the changeling’s limp body off onto some poor knight in his squadron who’d never dealt with a kid in their life, let a lone a severely injured one who was about one cracked rib away from breaking every single bone in his body at the same time. Due to the advanced healing magic that they had access to at the castle, Vanitas liked to pull absolutely no punches when it came to his training regimens. Getting a limb sliced just barely under impromptu amputation or being impaled on the captain’s sword was pretty much par for the course.

This specific afternoon, he’d managed to get second-degree burns up and down both of his legs from the volcanic vents scattered around one of their training sites. He’d been too reckless in trying to catch up to Vanitas and completely missed the warning hiss of steam before getting blown nearly off the mountain with the miniature eruption. It could’ve been far worse, having been on a volcano after all, but Riku still had to say that steam burns were pretty high up on his list of things that were unpleasant to experience.

Aside from the training being intensely painful, it could be difficult, upon occasion, for his friends and family to see him in the state that he was often left in after practice. At least Ventus hadn’t seen the worst of it. Aqua could handle a little more gore than he, though not by much.

In spite of his age, Sora was Vanitas’ go-to whenever the prince was available to drag his knight-in-training to the nurse. He was the only one that was trusted not to freak out about Riku’s fangs, since it wouldn’t always be possible to hide them while the kid was knocked out. Sora didn’t even seem to notice that they weren’t normal to have. Not that Vanitas really cared either way, so long as he didn’t have to deal with the headache that was someone asking why his subordinate was developing physical mutations.

That didn’t necessarily mean that Sora enjoyed the work. He hated seeing Riku hurt, especially now, from what Riku could tell by the slump of his shoulders and the furrow in his brow whenever he made an involuntary whimper at his legs being jostled.

When Vanitas suddenly dropped him, burns, blood, and all at the prince’s feet, disappearing into thin air seconds later, he knew that his friend was unprepared for the blatant display of ruthlessness. His gasp of horror and the slight beginnings of panic were all that Riku could hear as his mind slowly drifted to blank, registering the frenzied rush to gather him in his arms as though through a pane of glass. Everything was far away, distorted by gently shifting light…

Riku couldn’t understand it past the haze in his mind, but Sora angrily muttered about Vanitas needing to take better care of him as they passed safely through one of the castle’s many death traps on their way to the infirmary. Any magic that was meant to keep intruders out naturally shrank away from the prince’s incredible aura, allowing him to find the fastest and least dangerous ways out. The trip through his quarters was far less dangerous with himself present, taking a fraction of the time that it would take Riku otherwise, conscious or unconscious. The two of them made it down to floor one in record time.

He had yet to figure out how Vanitas kept bypassing the castle’s magic to do stuff like this. Most people, including his own parents, were too scared to venture inside unless strictly necessary. Vanitas did it for _laughs_. Or because he didn’t care enough to take Riku to the nurse himself.

Sora considered him a coward for that alone, being unable to suck up his pride for long enough to heal an injured student. What a joke.

If no one was going to make sure that Riku was safe and looked after, then he would gladly do it himself, regardless of whatever trouble he’d get in for leaving his quarters. Someone had to do the job. And he did, taking extra care to be gentle when it came time to squeeze through the door to the main castle.

For all intents and purposes, the main castle looked exactly as castles should, if containing a few more oceanic decals than usual: Large, regal, pristine, and quite intimidating to a little prince like him. The disparity in height never really occurred to him until he’d started breaking the rules and leaving his quarters. Every archway and alcove was bigger than anything he’d seen in the living castle by far, except so much emptier, like it was meant to be filled with objects or paintings or people that would never come. Sora felt so small in comparison. Shaking his head, he abandoned that thought before it could gain traction. His knees would get weak if he let it get to him, and he had to think about more than himself should that happen.

The continuous labored puffs of Riku’s breath against his chest reminded him that there were places to be. He hurried past the twists and turns of each hallway, being careful to avoid making eye contact with any servants along the way.

One benefit of being a mysterious figure around the palace was that a great majority of the staff didn’t see him regularly. Of the people who lived here, only soldiers and knights had ever gotten close enough to meet him in person at their banquets. Anyone else would only know his face from the portraits of him in the grand hall. As long as he kept his head down and moved quickly, no one would think that he was their prince, usually deciding that the glint of his crown piercings was a figment of their imagination as he stormed by in haste to get Riku medical treatment.

There was one more obstacle of this caliber that tended to thwart him halfway to his goal, which was the gigantic, almost floor to ceiling painting of him and his family that his parents had commissioned around a year ago. That was where servants would start to recognize him if they were dwindling near, understandable considering that his image was plastered up large enough to be seen all the way from the other end of the hall. Even worse, Riku had been included in that one.

He didn’t bring it up much, because Riku would become horribly flustered and red if he did, but Sora wasn’t ignorant to every social cue in the book— he figured that having a giant painting of yourself hanging in the hallway for all your coworkers to see would make one a bit of a celebrity. There were few people who didn’t recognize Riku’s hypnotizingly teal eyes or his silver hair from its larger than life depiction alongside the royal family. They’d notice him in Sora’s arms by a simple glance to the wall and back, regardless of how obscured by blood the telltale color of his hair may be at the moment.

Sora didn’t really want to think about that, or else he was going to cry, so he let himself be distracted by studying the portrait while he jogged down the long stretch of velvet carpet in the spotless marble hallway.

In the painting, Riku was poised in a perpetual defensive stance, borrowed sword being held in front of him with his free hand hovering over Sora in a clear message to ‘back off’. Sora secretly though it was pretty cool, though any attempts to tell Riku so had resulted in him blushing and stammering for the better part of an afternoon.

Getting to be well-known had never been one of Riku’s motivations to be a knight. He was well aware of that, although he still found it to be kind of cute how much he deflected the attention. If it was up to him, Sora would want everyone to recognize Riku for his hard work, and praise him and love him for everything he did for whenever Sora couldn’t be there to say it himself. Maybe not right now though. They kind of needed to be stealthy in order to get to the infirmary.

It’s the principle of the thing. So what if he should’ve put on a hood before leaving his room? It’d long since been established that Riku was the brains of this operation, not him, and besides, he had the right to be more preoccupied by Riku’s burns than anything else in the moment. Vanitas was the one who was _supposed_ to be powerwalking past the giant portrait of himself with Riku in the hallway anyway.

The painted image of his cousin standing eerily behind them looked like it was judging him, mocking Sora for not being more careful. Sora had half a mind to kick its acrylic teeth in.

The two-dimensional versions of Vanitas’ golden eyes felt like they were burning into the back of his neck long after he passed the portrait and continued down the next hall. Perhaps he’d gotten too used to personifying inanimate objects from his solitary time in his quarters, but something felt off, and he was sure he wasn’t making it up. When Riku was healed up, he’d have to ask if he thought the painting was haunted.

Riku would laugh at the idea. He wished more than anything that he could hear it right now; his friend was in no condition to make fun of the idea whether he thought it was ridiculous or not.

Resolving to move even faster, Sora broke into a sprint, dodging around servants, soldiers, and other court members who were going from one place to another. At some point, he even caught a glimpse of Aqua among them. While he’d love to say hello, as he hadn’t seen her since the last knight’s banquet, there were more important things to tend to. He couldn’t just assume that she wouldn’t rat him out to his parents. That, and she wouldn’t be happy to see her son so badly hurt.

Sora did take a tiny, hesitant moment to look before moving on though, watching her lean on the mop she was using and giggle at Ventus, who was covered in soap and water on the floor.

The moment that he slid into the infirmary, the nurse abandoned all questioning of why he was out of his room in favor of sweeping his injured friend right out of his arms, laying him down to rest in a cot by the far window.

Unfortunately, this very situation had happened a multitude of times before. She usually allowed him to trail after her as long as he didn’t get in the way. Sora did so as a way of warding the tears that refused to stop bubbling behind his eyes, having a difficult time keeping them at bay when he looked at his best friend for long enough. Following her as she gathered herbs for her spells was calming. It helped him take his mind off of the pale skin of Riku’s cheeks, devoid of its typical healthy flush, and the burns causing him to whine in his sleep whenever they shifted against the bedsheets…

He knew that he’d need to get a stronger stomach if he was going to be doing this a lot. From how frequently this had been happening lately, Sora guessed that the time for it would be sooner rather than later.

In only a few short minutes of spellwork, Riku was good as new, strained expression melting into a peaceful sleep once the nurse drew her hand away from his forehead.

“Is he gonna be alright now?” Sora asked in a small voice.

The woman turned her head to him. She tucked a stray dreadlock that had fallen out of her bandana behind her ear, then spoke in a deep voice as rich as caramel.

“His wounds were perfectly fixable. You need not worry, little prince.”

Carefully, she rolled up her sleeves, getting to work taking her enchanted herbs back to their places in the small study the next room over.

Sora was reluctant to leave Riku’s side, but he allowed curiosity to get the better of him. For some reason, he was getting the idea that his time with her wasn’t through, so he followed, and for a moment, he felt like she wasn’t going to let him pass the threshold— then a sigh let him know that she’d surrendered the fight that hadn’t even begun.

Inside was a room filled mostly with elaborately decorated ceramic jars. The nurse paid little mind to them, too focused on returning the herbs to the various cabinets or sachets that she’d taken them from to spare them more than a glance. They were gorgeous, and Sora took a moment to admire one of the closer ones, a royal blue vase with a heaping string of beads coiled around its top. He reached for the lid for no particular reason only to have his hand swatted away.

“Don’t touch her.” The nurse commanded.

“Her?”

“The jar.” She clarified, pulling him gently backwards so he was out of its reach.

He wrinkled his nose. Was there something special about the jar? It was certainly beautiful. Otherwise, it looked like a perfectly ordinary container, probably for oil or honey.

As if she had eyes on the back of her head, she spoke again the second that he laid his hand on the lid. “I told you not to touch her, troublemaker. She doesn’t like it.”

Reprimanded, Sora decided that the third time was likely not the charm, and withdrew his hand from the tempting secrets.

After some time of waiting for some kind of further explanation, it became clear that the nurse wouldn’t offer one. She reminded him somewhat of his Papa in that way. He was always frustratingly vague when it came to just about anything. Sighing, Sora gave in, posing his question despite being aware that it may not get an answer he’d be satisfied with.

“What happens if I open the jar? She’d… rattle menacingly?” He asked. “I don’t want to be mean if she wouldn’t like it, but I really wanna see what’s in there.”

The woman chuckled. “Abandon your urge to find out. She will curse you with nightmares should you try.”

Well now he was _really_ curious.

Time to inquire further dwindled into nothing the longer they sat. The air shifted all of a sudden, and he could tell that she wished to speak with him seriously.

“So,” Sora was questioned as the nurse leaned back against the counter. Her septum piercing caught the light whenever she spoke, the gold of the ring reflecting off her night-dark skin in a way that reminded him of lantern glow on the ocean at dusk. “You and that boy are here quite often.”

What she left unsaid between them was _too often._ Sora heard it, anxiously running his hands up his arms.

“I don’t want him to be,” He responded.

They locked eyes in a kind of odd understanding. “That, I know.”

It couldn’t have been known how much time they stood there, be it minutes, hours, or days. Time didn’t exist. Until it did, when he heard Riku beginning to stir from the infirmary. His concern overwhelmed him with the desire to run to his best friend’s side, before he could wake up and think he was all alone. The nurse stopped him by gripping her hand loosely on his wrist.

“Your friend is better. Do not mistake him for being ‘okay’.”

Sora’s breath hitched. He spun around to meet her dark brown eyes, scared of what she could be implying by that.

“You mean-″

She interrupted him. “Let’s just say that someone forced open that jar using his hand, and tried to drown him in its contents.”

Perfectly on cue, rampaging, angry darkness flooded the room, right as Riku began screaming.

\---

King Strife looked between the two boys waiting in front of him, stopping to pinch the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on already. “Okay, fine. I’ll let you go. But you need to stop leaving your quarters, and you know this.”

The prince didn’t even have the decency to look remorseful. The young knight-in-training, Riku, had to elbow him in the side just to get him to bow.

Riku cleared his throat. “I won’t let him take me to the infirmary again. Next time, I’ll try to walk. _As is my duty,”_ He emphasized, as a way of scolding Sora.

This predictably angered him. A constant advocate for justice, he’d been furious that Riku was expected to take care of his own wounds, citing that all the other soldiers in Vanitas’ platoon got potions and ethers for when they were hurt, or were allowed to be taken to the infirmary by another member. King Strife was forced to remind him that Sora was not another member of the platoon and thus could not.

“But Vanitas left him with me!” Sora shouted. “He could’ve taken Riku to the nurse, if he wasn’t such a jerk!”

Vanitas stuck his tongue out at his cousin, then blew a raspberry on his hand whenever the prince tried to push his point. Even King Strife found this to be quite tasteless, despite being on Vanitas’ side of the argument. He motioned for the captain to stop.

Not that Vanitas cared much for orders. The problem was solved relatively quickly by Sora, whose annoyance accidentally cast a mute spell over the captain that was, _okay,_ pretty funny to watch.

Riku blinked in disbelief at the two of them, trying intensely hard not to laugh.

“Anyway,” King strife continued. “I told you already that you need to stop leaving your room. What do me and Papa always say?”

“…It’s to keep me safe.”

He nodded. “That’s right. And leaving the room makes all of that for nothing. You’re still a kid, Sora-Sor, you can’t protect yourself yet.”

Fundamentally, this was not true, but King Strife didn’t know anything about his and Riku’s nighttime sparring, and both of them preferred to keep it that way. Sora ducked his head down so as not to give it away with his face.

“That’s why Riku’s training in the first place. He’s supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around. I know you mean well.”

That seemed to make Sora start. Before, he’d never really considered the fact that Riku being his knight meant that he was supposed to be putting himself in danger, and now that he was thinking about it, it felt obvious. Obvious, and bad.

Riku noticed the guilt creeping into Sora’s magical field, stepping in to calm him so it wouldn’t manifest as some unpredictable spell. The two linked hands. Leaning forward, Riku whispered something softly into Sora’s ear, then, slowly but surely, the prince’s shoulders came down from where they’d been inching towards his head.

“Just leave the fighting to Vanitas and Riku. They know how to take care of it.”

From behind Riku, Vanitas signed rapidly at Sora, including far more curses than necessary for a conversation with an eight-year-old. King Strife rolled his eyes. As long as he was convincing Sora to stop leaving his room, he could pretend he didn’t see that.

The sound of an opening door caught the king’s attention. At the end of the throne room, struggling to get his oversized sword through the doorway, was his husband, Squall.

“Oh thank the fates,” Cloud groaned once his husband was within hearing distance. “Do something about this, honey? The kids are driving me crazy today.” Squall saluted, shooting out an arm to smack Vanitas upside the head as he walked past. He was suddenly appreciative of the mute spell cast over the captain when his attempted rain of death threats never reached anyone’s ears.

As Squall approached him on his throne, he leaned over to give him a quick kiss that garnered disgusted stomping from their nephew in lieu of speech and embarrassed shuffling from Sora and Riku.

“Quit being jealous, Van.” Squall quipped.

Cloud took a moment to fill his husband in on what they’d been discussing while the three onlookers argued amongst themselves. It seemed that they would all be perfectly happy to yell at each other for the rest of eternity as long as no one interrupted. Definitely not a surprise when it came to their nephew, as he was practically born kicking the ass of everyone around him, and would continue to do so until the day he died, presumably.

Upon being informed of Sora leaving his quarters again, Squall turned to their son with stern disapproval. Sora still neglected to take full responsibility for the slip up. According to him, none of the punishment that he received was worth leaving Riku when he was hurt.

The sentiment was incredibly sweet, and the parents were both proud of their son’s compassion, but it really wasn’t helpful in this particular circumstance. They understood full stop what it was like to be worried for the wellbeing of someone you care about. Just, in this, Riku had consented to train under Vanitas, including whatever shitty teaching practices he could come up with. Sora breaking his isolation to care for his friend was not only unnecessary, it was strictly against the very thing that Riku fought for.

Turning to Cloud, Squall debated the pros and cons of introducing a potential solution that they’d been tossing around since the first time that Sora broke out of his room. They shouldn’t say anything about it unless they were sure it was what they wanted to do…

When they turned back to the gaggle of kids (yes, Vanitas most definitely counted, even at age twenty-one), they found that their angry spiky-haired nephew was nowhere to be seen. Cloud raised his eyebrow confusedly at Riku, who sighed and pointed up at the ceiling.

Vanitas was crouched in the chandelier, hissing wildly, baring his fangs at his cousin far below, who looked playfully unimpressed.

A look of focus came over the prince’s face. Soon enough, he was lifted off the floor by an anti-gravity bubble, giggling at Vanitas as he shrieked and struggled to drop back down to the ground. He melted into a pool of darkness that oozed disgustingly through the chandelier’s branches like dripping ink. By the time he’d coalesced into human-shape again, Sora had already reversed his anti-gravity and slowed his fall with a strong gust of wind magic that bellowed throughout the throne room.

“What the fuck…” Squall muttered, so that only Cloud could hear.

When did Sora learn to do magic that powerful? Aeroga was barely used amongst mages until they’d graduated the academy, at least.

“Riku, you gotta teach me how to do that!” Sora laughed. “I didn’t know you guys could become darkness!”

Immediately, Riku blushed and ducked his head. “I-I can’t. Your parents would kill me,” After some deliberation, he added “I don’t even know if light users _can_ do magic like that. It might be a concept unique to darkness.”

“Ah, boo.”

Squall’s question was far from answered, so instead of unpacking all of that _,_ he glared at Vanitas for acting childishly. Vanitas flipped him off.

_“Attention.”_ Called Cloud. The Captain and his trainee instantly jumped to a rigid standing position out of sheer conditioning. At the motion of their kings, they both dropped to one knee, watching for more orders. Squall moved forward to nudge Sora in between them; a code that the prince did not yet know how to follow.

“Just for being petty, Vanitas, we’re making you two pay respects. Think twice before you flip off your king next time.”

The blurred flashing of his hands showed his displeasure. Nonetheless, he’d been caught, and thus commented with a few slower signs, _Fine. You’ll have to settle for the prince, though, because there’s no way in hell I’m kissing your filthy hands._

Vanitas reached out to yank Sora’s hand close, giving it an obnoxiously slobbery kiss that made his stomach try to wrench itself out of his body in disgust. There was spit dripping _all over_ his fingers now. Resisting the urge to throw up, Sora wiped it off on his sides, gagging as his cousin made gross kissy faces at him to make the experience even worse.

_You too, Riku._ Vanitas shot towards the boy. _We were both commanded to pay up._

It looked like steam was about to pour from Riku’s ears, his face was so red. Arm shaking like a leaf, he carefully took Sora’s other hand, the one that hadn’t recently been smeared with Vanitas’ saliva, and drew it up just underneath his lips.

“R-Right. Uh…”

Sora’s face heated significantly as well. He didn’t really understand what was going on, having a less than stellar knowledge of royal proceedings, but the skip of his heart told him that he had no objections to whatever his friend was going to do.

Hesitantly, Riku nodded, then stooped to place a soft, chaste kiss to Sora’s knuckles. He drew away just as quickly as he’d done it, recoiling like he’d been burned.

If it was possible to get redder— Riku would say he was glad that he physically could not and leave it there. This whole conversation was bad for his health. It wouldn’t be surprising if he learned that it was an elaborate ruse to assassinate him, for how his heart was beating fast enough to give out… and some cosmic joke with no discernable punchline allowed him to meet with startlingly blue eyes that were wide with unnamed emotions, and _gosh_ , he’d never seen the prince’s caramel-colored skin quite so flushed.

A look went between the kings, stopping when Cloud shook his head. Squall cleared his throat and stepped forward to flick Vanitas in the forehead.

“Consider your debt repaid. We have something else to go over before you can be dismissed, so get up. And wipe that godsdamned drool off your chin, you look like a tool.” At the words, the moment broke; Riku and his mentor rose to their feet once again, Vanitas scowling as he wiped his face and fidgeted to pull his cloak askew the way that he liked it.

“Come forward, Riku.” Cloud beckoned.

He responded quickly, “Yes, sir,” and stepped out in front of the prince to form an L-shape between the three of them. As per the code, he knelt so that Sora would not be obscured.

His heartbeat was still fluttering like a bird trapped in his chest, apparently not having received the memo that he was no longer looking at Sora’s eyes. It was useless trying to calm himself right now, especially when he could feel the waves of Sora’s light pushing and pulling softly at the edges of his own magic, reverberating, making him feel like there was a candleflame flickering warmly at his back. All it serviced to do was make him short of breath. Desperately ignoring it, he bowed his head to let the kings know that he was listening.

Cloud nodded. “We sent word to Sora a few days prior that we wished to hold a meeting with the two of you. Knowing his- ahem- _forgetful_ nature, I would like to ask if you’ve been informed of this.”

Sheepishly, Sora scratched the back of his head and averted his gaze to the wall as Riku answered with “No, Your Majesty.”

“As was expected.” The king let out a long-suffering sigh. “It’s too late to hold it now. Sun’s going down,” He said, gesturing to the windows. Great swathes of reddened sunlight came from the westward panes and drenched the typically white hall in rose.

“For now, I’m going to ask you to escort my son to his quarters. He may accompany you to the armory if you want to retire your armor and weapon first, but please try to keep from staying in the open for long with him present. You know how we feel about that. As for our meeting, we will be waiting for you here tomorrow at 9:30 sharp. Don’t miss it.”

Riku looked up. “I won’t let you down, Your Majesty.”

\---

In other important news, according to the fates' records:

His bout of unconsciousness that day had brought the first of many nightmares, ones that Riku would become all too familiar with in coming years. They were mostly mixtures of his daytime worries, warped and reflected until they were more monstrous than he could ever imagine when waking, but some were not. Some contained a tinge of seething green magic at the edges. He would forget almost all of them come daylight, left with nothing save for the anxiety swirling in his gut, half of his limbs dissolved into pure darkness, and a vague, blurry image of himself surrounded on all sides by seawater.

It wasn’t always so terrible. Despite the pain and the terror of the moment, he found that the dreams made a wonderful alarm clock. He like waking up in time to see the sun rising over the horizon, and in time, he would find the early start quite useful.

The first times are always the hardest, though, and incidentally, his first was the only one that had ever caused him to wake up screaming.

He just wished that Sora hadn’t been there to see.

\---

_It was the lava pooling around his legs like they hadn’t done in waking— burning, scalding, inflicting a pain so intense that he could barely understand Vanitas’ shouting anymore. His voice overlaid with Sora’s, their eyes shifting between blue and gold, hair being unable to decide if it was black or cinnamon brown. Their skin swirled, whiter than snow in one moment, and the color of melted toffee the next._

_“Ventus, grab my hand!”_

_And he was Ventus, clawing at Vanitas’ wrist to pull himself out, but when it came time to surrender his trust to them, they seemed to have decided to be Sora. Sora was too small to carry Ventus’ full weight. He stumbled forward, the two of them collapsing together into the burning earth. There was only enough sanity left in him to curl his arm protectively around Sora before there was nothing to hold._

_He was Ventus for the several long and excruciating moments that proceeded death, until the pain stopped; Ventus had been burned away from him. Only Riku remained, and Riku was incapable of feeling._

_The scene was changing around him. What had been the mountain only moments before was now a background of sand and foaming water: the port. He touched down on the wood of the dock, so old and crusted with salt that it creaked under his weight, threatening to give._

_The screaming started. In place of his chest was a spear, long and sharp. The skin and muscle that it punctured was still numb. Something told him that he was running out of time before the blood loss would catch up to speed. As the screams got louder, he got dizzier, stumbling towards the edge of the dock and into the sea. Water soaked through his clothes and his hair, and even his skin, saturating his body like a sponge until he felt he had nothing left of himself. He’d been taken by the waves to use as they saw fit. Kicking his feet uselessly, Riku watched with stinging eyes as the surface disappeared faster than it ever should._

_There was the sound of Vanitas’ throwing knife next to his ear. Once he blinked, the ocean drained. The changeling was left coughing, sputtering, curling in on himself on an unforgiving hardwood floor._

_This place was familiar to him. It was the tavern that Vanitas snuck him out to after late-night practices, always filled to the brim with old sailors looking for some kind of entertainment. He remembered how they laughed at him when he collapsed of exhaustion. One day, they said, he’d learn to keep all that inside where no one could see._

_“Please,” He rasped, voice hoarse from processing a loss he’d had no time to grieve. “I want to see the captain… I want my brother… I want my best friend…”_

_The sailors laughed and downed their ale merrily. “Dead men, the lot of ‘em. At some point ye’ll hafta le’em go.”_

_He found that he’d been there for several years too many. Riku moved his unfamiliar limbs, too long, too tall, and dragged himself out of the tavern just to fall in the uneven sand. It took every ounce of his strength to crawl back to standing._

_Just in time to strike his sword against a familiar opponent._

_Sweat was gathering over his body, mingling unpleasantly with the dried blood and sea salt that lingered on his tight, ancient clothes. Sora didn’t notice. Blade clashed on blade. Every step, Riku became more tired, almost unable to move at all by the end of it. He didn’t know how Sora kept going like this._

_An answer came quickly. The person he was fighting wasn’t Sora. Instead was a man cloaked entirely in black, long silver hair spilling over his shoulders. A strip of black cloth was tied tightly over where his eyes should be. In his hand, a black sword with a dragon-wing handguard._

_With a start, Riku realized that he now, for better or worse, looked exactly the same._

_He was cut down easily. His own wooden sword, the one that Sora made for him, shattered into splinters that washed away in the waves as he scrambled to pick up the pieces. But it was a futile effort; the man had destroyed it past recognition._

_Riku hadn’t cried since he was a baby. He felt a burn in his chest that made him want to double over and sob._

_“You need to pull yourself together.” The man said calmly._

_Gripping the broken sword handle, Riku looked up. “I’m not crying.”_

_It was difficult to tell what the man was thinking. With his eyes covered, getting a read on his reaction was next to null, though somehow, Riku could tell that he didn’t like the response._

_“Yeah, I know.”_

_In a great sweeping motion, the man discarded both his cloak and his blindfold, revealing Riku’s face and body. It was himself if he hadn’t spent the past seven years waiting for his hair to turn gold, dreaming of one matching eye and the other so blue that it made his heart ache to remember how it looked in the light._

_“Look in the water. Tell me what you see.”_

_Riku moved a few inches forward, so he could see his reflection. “No,” He whispered. “No, no…”_

_“This is who you are.” Not-Riku said._

_“No!”_

_Not-Riku was far more patient than he looked. He didn’t try to press further, for there was nothing more to say. All he did was wait._

_“We are him. He is us. I am you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not that anybody cares, but the room full of decorated jars was inspired by my Godmother's altar room. In her religion, Santeria, the jars are home to her saints (called the Orishas in the Yoruba following). I wrote that scene like an early childhood memory of mine, in which my twin brother went to open one of the jars and was cursed with nightmares... my Godmother had to fix it by putting cascarilla powder on his forehead. Fucking noob lol.


	10. Fuzzy Feelings, and Other Things That Riku Mistakes for Nausea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHHH I'm sorry for this being a few days late, I rewrote this segment literally three times in order to get my finalized version and it took me longer because I usually only rewrite once if at all :( . I just wanted to make sure that everything was exactly the way I intended it to go, especially since this chapter is setting up the start of what I'd affectionately call The Plot. So... congratulations for making it this far! You've hit (the start of) The Plot! We've barely covered my first page of notes. What do you mean I'm long-winded?
> 
> Anyway, thank you to everyone who's commented!!!! Your words mean the world to me <3

Riku awoke to find that his physical form had completely melted away, and that he was essentially nothing more than a pool of shadow in the shape of his body.

How very poetic. If he had vocal cords in this form, he would’ve groaned into his pillow at the sheer melodrama. But as it was right then, the only thing he could do was slide his consciousness around the dark space underneath his covers, attempting to regenerate his arms and legs at the very least.

The darkness was successfully coaxed back into his usual human shape after long minutes of excessive prodding. Once feeling slowly leeched into his newly reformed limbs, Riku pushed the covers of his bed down enough to wiggle out. His feet touched down on the wooden floor, still tingling weirdly from the nerves activating again.

_Dong-Ding… Dong-Ding… Dong-Ding…_

Someone up in the belltower was ringing out the hour. Riku waited out his instability by listening to the chimes, blinking the residual darkness from his eyes, until they ceased at count of eight.

Right. The kings wanted him in an hour and half, so he should start getting ready.

Yet his limbs didn’t move. He grumbled at their noncompliance, knowing that it wasn’t really a case of them needing more time to rest. His legs wouldn’t move, not because they _couldn’t,_ but because they didn’t want to let go of their leftover tension, exhausted from fighting an enemy that didn’t exist.

A scolding voice that sounded quite a bit like Ventus’ told him to crawl back into bed and get some rest. Then logic kicked in to fight that, reminding him that sleep could possibly mean more nightmares.

It was bad _enough_ that Sora had seen him in the infirmary. His thrashing and shouting, the tearing at the walls— he didn’t know why he’d been so affected by it when it was just some stupid dream, but nevertheless, Riku was ashamed of himself. Knights were supposed to hold themselves to a certain kind of conduct, and he’d done nothing to showcase that with his actions. In front of his _best friend_. A boy whom was also the prince, no less.

He couldn’t face the dream again. Riku wasn’t strong enough, especially not after he’d awoken, and remembered what it was that was most important to him.

Protecting his family and his friends.

Aqua, who was the strongest person he knew, Ventus, who was caring to a fault, Vanitas, who had put so much into teaching him how to fight, and Sora… whose smile was able to melt him effortlessly, who was warm and loving and the brightest star he’d ever seen burning. The prospect of a world without them, all of them, was too bleak to live in.

Now that he was awake, he was able to confirm that all of them were perfectly fine, which was _embarrassing,_ because why wouldn’t they be? Riku’s nightmare was just that— a nightmare. It’s not like it was real.

It didn’t actually happen, his friends weren’t dead, they were probably either working or asleep like they always were on any given morning. That was all that kept him from crawling under his bed and staying there, staring at the wall for the rest of his natural lifespan.

If only he could. Wouldn’t that be better than all of this pretending that his very existence wasn’t a danger to everyone around him?

Sometimes it felt like Sora’s constant light was the only thing able to soothe him, as the ever-enduring presence of his magic staved off the roiling darkness beneath Riku’s skin, the dark that was so often whispering that nobody actually cared about him, that he was fighting this battle for nothing.

Could he really fight his true nature as a creature of darkness, or was he deluding himself? Riku would be nothing if Sora’s light didn’t stifle his dark, just a black pawn in an infinite game of cosmic chess.

_Vanitas is a darkness user, too,_ Riku argued. _He’s not a pawn of his magic._

But Vanitas’ darkness was nowhere near the same as his own. Riku’s was so consuming, so complete, that it was difficult for him to make a comparison to the captain’s. Captain Vanitas had never needed to suppress his darkness around others, since his was measured at a perfectly normal level. It didn’t cause nearly the same amount of pain as Riku’s would whenever he released his own magic. The two simply weren’t comparable.

Shadow creatures- monsters with almost no consciousness to speak of, aside from the basic survival instincts of an ant- Riku knew that they were rampant in the kingdoms beyond, remnants of the darkness that Kings Strife and Leon had mostly driven from their kingdom during the wars of reclamation. They were among the darkest things that lived in these parts, and the only things that he felt comfortable comparing himself to. Would he ever become as heartless as them, hurting and killing those that he loved without ever feeling a shred of guilt? Is that what became of the people born to darkness in a land of love and light?

In a place where destiny was its namesake, how could Riku think that he was able to dodge the inevitable?

He didn’t want to hurt people. Not if he could prevent it somehow, not if he could do something, _anything_ about it. That was why Riku had wanted to be a knight in the first place. Ever since he could remember, he’d always dreamed of righting the wrongs of the kingdom in the name of peace… for perhaps the millionth time in his life, he wondered what it would’ve been like to have been born a light user, so that healing, not harming, would be native to him the same way that it was for Aqua, or Sora, or Ventus.

He cast the thought away before it could fully form. Riku was familiar with the twists and turns of that line of thinking, and thus understood that nothing good could come of it. It was a coward’s way out of owning up to his own actions.

Rising to his feet, Riku stumbled slowly to the closet, sick of waiting for the numbness to stop. He had to get ready for the day at some point.

In order to be properly prepared, he’d have to make a stop by the armory, and then probably to the prince’s room, since he was nearly certain that Sora would sleep through his scheduled meeting with his parents if he wasn’t dragged out of bed on time.

Okay. Normal, daily functions. He could do this.

The path to the armory was usually deserted by the time Riku woke up, mostly because Vanitas required him to be ready for practice at ungodly hours of the night, so he was unprepared for the amount of people hanging around it when he approached.

Waking up about five hours later than usual would do that to you, he supposed.

He weaved around the other soldiers who were suiting up for the morning on his way to the racks for his equipment. They were usually organized by size, material, and enchantment, in that order. As the youngest and therefor the smallest (though that would hopefully change since he was going to be a teen in just a small handful of years), Vanitas had needed to commission special armor for him in the generic templates. Unlike the other armor here, his sets were made to be used by him and only him.

Riku dug through his collection to find the leather set. It was black, and enchanted by the witches’ guild per his request to help absorb excess darkness. He strapped on the various pieces until his image was nearly that of Vanitas’ obsidian blade.

Looking at his reflection in the wall of shields made his heart jump for a second. Just for his own peace of mind, a hand came up to card through his hair, finding relief when the end of the strands came where they should be, right past his ears. He huffed and grabbed his usual shield. And then was the wall of swords…

The wall of swords was clearly the pride and joy of the armory, and for good reason: each and every blade had been crafted by the castle’s swordsmith apprentices, catered individually to any design or enchantment a knight could want. There was no “generic” sword in here. Everyone who used the Royal Armory had to get their own weapon made by an apprentice eventually, assuming they hadn’t already received one from a different source.

A sword had been made for Riku, in fact, but not in the traditional sense, as Vanitas declined to let Riku design his sword with the help of an apprentice. The captain was the one who’d elected to do it instead. It was silver in color, mostly plain aside from an inscription on the blade, ending in Sora’s crown insignia at the bottom.

He traced over the writing with one finger. The text was unintelligible spell script, most likely there to keep the sword from being broken too easily.

Into the sheath it went. That was then fixed to his back, underneath the shield.

Time to go see Sora.

The details of the living castle were almost entirely uninteresting to him after going through it every other day for years now. Riku made it to Sora’s room in about twenty minutes.

What he’d been expecting to find was his best friend still fast asleep in his bed. The prince liked to sleep in for as long as he could whenever he could, a sentiment which Riku could sympathize with despite never really being able to do the same. Well, aside from today. That was not the sight he was greeted with.

Riku suddenly found it very difficult to keep brooding over his darkness as he laid eyes on Sora covered from head to toe in bright swathes of colorful paint, smearing the walls with turquoise pigment.

“What… is happening here?”

“Oh, Riku, good morning!” Sora called, turning away from his project to give him a smile. There was a charming smudge of yellow over the bridge of his nose.

The prince gestured broadly to the area he was working on. Riku walked up behind him to look at it, careful not to get any color on his armor while moving through the messy space. Where Sora had been painting was a scene of snow and ice in a little alpine village.

Looking around the room, he saw that there were a ton of other scenes just like it, of various towns and cities from the Destiny Islands’ neighboring kingdoms and far, far beyond. There were paintings of lush jungles and sandy deserts, of caves and mountains and forests on every available surface, bursting with so much life and color and much more detail than Riku had been expecting to see from something that Sora had painted by himself.

Each corner of the room had a different tower depicted on its walls. Two of them were clock towers, one surrounded by a sunset and lovely white clouds, the other shadowed in midnight, the clock face glowing like the golden dust dripping from its sides. One other, Riku recognized as the tower of the cathedral in La Cité des Cloches, complete with a somewhat clumsy depiction of its complex stained-glass windows.

On the wall near Sora’s bed, Riku saw the dark waters of a bustling port town after dark. That caused him to blanche just the barest hint of a degree. He knew it was supposed to be Port Royal, not the Destiny Islands docks, but it still made him nervous for a moment.

Riku felt dizzy from how much he was taking in at once.

“Heh, didn’t mean to scare you,” Sora said after a moment. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I decided to do a little redecorating.”

“That’s the understatement of the century.”

Rubbing the back of his head, Sora chuckled, then pulled away suddenly when he realized he was getting turquoise paint in his hair.

“Ah, well, I guess I got a little carried away. But hey! I think most of it turned out pretty well, don’t you think?”

He couldn’t argue with that. Riku was truthfully a little in awe of how cool it looked, unable to do more than gawk like an idiot. However unpracticed the paintings were, it was obvious how much effort and personality had been put into them, both of those qualities being things that Sora had an abundance of.

Riku placed his hand on the painting of the small stretch of beachfront just outside of the living castle where they liked to sit and watch the sunset together. There were two wooden swords painted beneath the curve of the paopu tree, stuck in the sand.

“That one’s my favorite.” Sora said softly.

A weird feeling surged in Riku’s stomach. He wanted to smile back at him, match the enthusiasm to show him how much he liked it… but the spot where his fangs kept catching on the inside of his lip burned to remind him that he couldn’t, so he forced the urge to die.

“Eh, it’s okay.” Riku responded coolly, to his own immediate regret. Something angry and frustrated clawed at the inside of his chest as Sora deflated.

“Y-Yeah, maybe it’s a little cheesy,” The prince forced a fake laugh. “I should fix that.”

Riku panicked. That wasn’t what he meant to say— he didn’t know why he’d done it. And now, watching heat rise to Sora’s cheeks, eyes shifting away from him, he felt so guilty that he wanted to drop to his knees and beg to take it back.

“Wait, no!” Riku stumbled to correct himself, grabbing onto Sora’s shoulder with one hand as the prince looked up to see what he had to say. “I didn’t mean it like that. The paintings are _really_ good. I was just caught off-guard, you know, and my dumb brain spit out whatever it felt like.”

He cursed the stupid-idiot brain fungus that made him such a bad friend, deciding while he was at it to also curse the fluttering sensation in his stomach and chest that had turned to heavy brick as soon as he opened his mouth. Luckily, it seemed like his explanation worked somewhat, as Sora stopped moving to block Riku’s view of the piece. The changeling let out a breath that he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding.

Suddenly, Riku was hyperaware of where the two of them were touching, as the brick in his chest turned back to fluttering so quickly it left him with whiplash.

Why was he like this?

It felt like every time he was around Sora lately, something like this would always happen. They’d be talking or sparring or something like that, and then this odd feeling would surface in his stomach, like how it was right now, when Sora did something as simple as smile at him.

All it took was a glance to make him feel like he was falling off a high ledge. Ticklish, kinda, but not as fleeting, and so warm that he often wondered if his skin would just give up and melt away to reveal his ribcage. The sound of Sora’s voice made him dizzy, and every time they got close, his heart would start beating a mile a minute.

Riku had no idea what it meant for him. Honestly, he’d been hoping that it would go away on its own eventually, despite the fact that, observably, the feeling kept popping up more and more frequently these days.

Even worse, he just kept ruining it with these dumb deflections.

“It’s okay. I get mixed up sometimes too, ya know?” Sora said, waving off Riku’s concerns with his paint-stained hands.

He should’ve known that Sora would be understanding about it, because holding grudges was not even a word in his vocabulary. Riku wished that he’d get angry. Punish him for being so tactless. Give him something to improve, the same way that Vanitas did in their training.

But Sora wasn’t like his brash and unpredictable cousin. Sora was gentle and kind, and strong, too, with his actions as much as his words. Few people were as capable of forgiveness as he was. Forgiveness was _hard._ And he did it so easily, making him much stronger than Riku ever would be.

Riku owed it to him to be better, he thought. He couldn’t expect Sora to forgive him for every mistake.

“They really do look amazing.” Riku insisted. “I was out of line, Your Highness.”

At that, Sora frowned.

His friend dropped the hand still holding a paintbrush down to his side dejectedly. “Riku… I’ve told you before; you don’t have to use my title, even if you think I’m mad at you. I _promise_ I’m never going to order you out.”

Like he said, way too forgiving. Riku sighed. “I know. You wouldn’t do something like that, even if you should.”

“Don’t say that!” The prince insisted, stomping his foot. “If what you said was an accident, then you didn’t do anything wrong. Besides, you wouldn’t have done anything wrong _anyway_ , since it’s not like you’re required to find my sloppy art skills appreciable.”

They weren’t that bad. Riku’s slipup had been one of his stupidest yet, because the art around Sora’s room right now was beautiful, and he deserved to be applauded for that.

That- that wasn’t even the point.

They argued back and forth about who should be apologizing verses who should be accepting the apology, an activity which was not new to them. The sun rose up in the sky until a beam of light cast through the window at just the right angle to make Riku remember they had a meeting to attend.

Sora reluctantly agreed to put their argument on hold so that they wouldn’t be late. Still covered in paint, he took Riku by the hand to start walking him through the living castle.

Riku resigned himself to getting turquoise on his arm guards, and also figured out what it was like to experience heart palpitations as the warm fingers slipped between his own.

\---

Sora had sparred with Riku plenty of times. More than he could ever try to count, really— so by all accounts, he should know that Riku was perfectly capable of defending himself in a fight. It was what he’d been aiming for ever since the two of them met. _Literally_ so, if he recalled correctly, because even though the details of their first meeting were fuzzy and distant to a mind twice as old, he still remembered Riku’s determination to one day protect him as a Royal Knight and a friend with a clarity unparalleled.

So pardon him if he was left a little confused by the skip in his heart when Riku and Vanitas crossed their blades and began their forty paces back.

He almost couldn’t bring himself to watch, or he wouldn’t, if it wasn’t _Riku_ who was out there. Sora was mesmerized by the determined expression on his friend’s face, how calm and collected he looked, and how regal, like a true warrior out there on the battlefield. Looking away was an impossible feat when Riku naturally drew his full attention just by walking into a room.

Maybe it was because he was unused to social contact (despite craving it like a starving man), but Sora, a devout optimist, preferred to think that it was simply a result of his friend’s geniality. One couldn’t help but be drawn to him. Through his rough exterior of teasing and playfighting, there was a real quality of gentleness to Riku that others did not give him enough credit for.

Though that gentleness could turn to fierce aggression at the drop of a hat, so long as he was pointed in the direction of an injustice that needed correcting. Vanitas was playing with fire here by dueling him with such cockiness.

There was a metaphor in there somewhere about poking a sleeping dragon. Sora wouldn’t know, since he was a bit too busy trembling in anticipation of the first strike.

A broadsword from the armory was resting tightly in Riku’s grip, much tougher and bigger than the wooden swords that Sora’d made for them to spar with, as these ones were actually made for battle. This one was steel. Sunlight glinted off the finely-oiled blade to shine a patch of light on the ceiling, one that twisted and warped at every minute quiver of Riku’s arm. He was clearly paying no attention to it, instead narrowing his focus to only his captain.

And then Riku charged.

Riku was fast, but Vanitas was faster, warping this way and that at a speed so quick it was hard to keep up with. Their weapons clanged against each other in clouds of red sparks. As the changeling moved, Vanitas followed, able to block every strike thrown his way like he was brushing some dirt off his shoulder. It was fast. It was _really_ fast.

The prince was leaning at the edge of his seat, unfamiliar clean marble of his throne digging into his thighs as he leaned more and more forward. Every clash of metal made Sora that much more worried that Riku was going to somehow get hurt.

He didn’t doubt that Riku could win. The issue was him getting out of it safely, which was looking less possible the farther the battle progressed. Vanitas was horrifically brutal…

Dark flames spewed from both sides of the room, captain and student both temporarily abandoning their swords for magic. King Leon flinched away from the darkness once it infiltrated his magic field. Sora and his other father hurried to call water spells in hand, in case the two forgot to control their magic in the heat of the moment.

Luckily, the water wasn’t necessary, as Riku switched his spell to a large spray of purple rain. Torrents of liquid slugged at Vanitas until he was practically unable to move. Then the captain looked up, raising his hands to cast anew.

“Lightning!” He yelled. Sora preemptively flinched.

A huge boom shook the area as crackling black electricity coursed along the water up to Riku’s hands. He was unable to call back the spell fast enough; it followed the water to his fingers, causing Riku to convulse, in so much pain that he couldn’t scream. Sora felt his stomach drop.

Once he was released, Riku refused to falter, lifting up a weak hand to shoot out a dark blizzard spell.

It hit Vanitas mere milliseconds before he would have teleported away. The brief moment that he was stuck in the ice gave Riku enough time to get close, sword raised high above his head.

“You’re finished!” Riku shouted. _“YAH!”_

The spray of blood from Vanitas’ shoulder drenched the ground they were standing on, as if it hadn’t already been covered in the effects of the fight. Officially, the battle was done: first blood had been drawn.

Sora couldn’t watch the part where Riku took his blade out of the captain’s cleaved shoulder, which was a thread away from being off the body completely. Vanitas was mildly annoyed, but relatively well, otherwise, and didn’t even seem to care when he realized that the bone was severed clean. Shrugging with his other shoulder, he just popped the cap off a potion that King Strife handed to him, poured its contents on his wound, then stuck his arm back where it should be and patted it like he was slapping the side of a prized steed.

“Go to the infirmary, Vanitas.” Ordered King Leon.

“But-”

“Go.”

The captain grumbled on his way out, apparently angrier that Riku broke his victory streak than cut his arm halfway off.

Riku sank down to his knees, breathing hard. He waved away the offer of a potion in some stupid display of dignity.

Intending to correct that, Sora jumped from his throne, walking towards his friend with conviction while reaching into his pocket for the potion and ether that he _knew_ he’d stuffed in there sometime that morning.

His fingers closed around the lid of the potion bottle. _Bingo._

“Drink.” Sora commanded, shoving the healing item at his friend’s face. As Riku went to decline, Sora glared, nudging it even more insistently at him. Riku closed his eyes in resignation and tossed the drink back as ordered. Though he looked loathe to admit it, his body relaxed heavily once its strain was lifted.

“Good job, Riku. Those were some very promising battle skills you displayed out there today.” Cloud said from behind them.

The sound of his voice immediately caused him to stiffen and try to arrange himself into a proper position of respect in the presence of royalty.

He stumbled, still dizzy.

The potion was not enough to cure all of his exhaustion, _clearly_ , so Sora was mad that his father had yet to take notice or at least _wait_ a moment for Riku to get his bearings before trying to strike a conversation. It was like Sora was the only one around here who seemed worried.

Watching Riku fight had been cool and all, but it was frustrating that his parents didn’t take Riku’s safety as seriously as his own. Being a soldier did not make him disposable!

“Dad, wait- Riku needs to see the healer too.”

Cloud nonchalantly swiped some of his hair away from his forehead. “He can do that later. We have business to attend to now.”

What kind of business was too important to heal Riku, if it was able to wait for him to spar with Vanitas in the first place? Sora didn’t understand palace niceties— strict schedules left no room for error, and the fallout of it made him want to tear his hair out sometimes. Who _cared_ about appointments? If his dad didn’t want to handle the injuries and problems that came with sandwiching a swordfight in the middle of a meeting, he shouldn’t have made them battle!

Sora was near steaming in rage, quite literally, as his anger manifested a swirling ring of fire that danced around his body like a planetary orbit. When he breathed out a strangled huff, it came as a cloud of dark smoke peppered intermittently by burning red embers.

“Don’t you guys know healing magic?” Sora demanded. “I won’t do anything until Riku’s taken care of. So, heal him!”

Something rather unexpected happened. Cloud blushed, actually _blushed,_ and shook his head, adamantly refusing. “We can do no such thing.”

The prince tilted his head in confusion. Back where Riku was sitting, he also looked to be flustered by the idea, fiddling awkwardly with his bruised wrist while refusing to meet Sora’s eyes.

“Healing magic can only be done to yourself or someone you’re in love with,” Riku whispered. “…the only way to bypass that is to renounce love and cast it aside.”

The flames around him immediately curled into whisps of bodiless smoke, bashful.

“T-Then I take it back.” Sora mumbled. Cloud shot him an exasperated look, like any other conclusion would’ve sent him back to his room.

A cough from Riku startled him out of his thoughts. When he turned around, Riku hurriedly tried to hide his fist, which was splattered in blood. 

Sora faced his father once again. “But I still won’t do anything until he’s healed.”

Then Sora’s signature puppy eyes came into play, the ultimate signs of vulnerability and surrender, not for Sora, but for literally anyone else who happened to see when he was using them. Cloud looked like he wanted to disagree. Yet even he was not immune to them, and was forced to accept his son’s wishes.

“Fine. Squall, give Riku my elixir.”

Shining golden in the light, Squall procured a very ornate bottle that was filled with liquid the same color as its exterior, and held it out to the boy on the ground in front of him. Riku looked stunned at the gesture. The way that his eyes were examining the bottle, Sora could tell that he wanted very much to turn it away out of politeness.

He seemed to war for a moment about whether or not accepting it would be better than saying no. Luckily, the decision fell out of his hands and into Sora’s, when the prince cleared his throat.

“Riku,” He called, softly. “Please?”

And Riku couldn’t refuse.

_Eight._ Said a voice in the recesses of Riku’s mind, unknown to anyone else present as he opened the bottle and drank yet again.

This time, he was surrounded by a haze of glowing gold, in which the bruises, burns, and fatigue faded from his body like they had never been there in the first place. It filled him with a sense of warmth and peace.

That was, in everywhere except his fangs, which ached in the way that they hadn’t since they’d first grown in. Riku clenched his jaw shut and waited out the pain.

“Thank you, Your Majesties.” Riku said, bowing his head as was proper.

Cloud nodded in acknowledgement.

Sora, relieved, squatted down to help his best friend stand, and they settled next to each other comfortably. Then he made the mistake of looking down at the prince’s face. The force of his smile overwhelmed Riku horribly, and shaky for different reasons now, he stumbled a few inches farther apart.

Watching sternly, Cloud decided to continue the proceedings. “Okay, that’s all the time you’re getting. Stand at attention.” It took less than a second for Riku to snap into place. He even saluted, so Sora figured he must be feeling better.

Squall moved to grab his husband’s hand. They both walked back to their thrones silently, then gestured for Sora to follow. The prince didn’t really want to.

Sitting on his throne made him feel unnatural and kind of bad, because the idea of being in a higher position than someone he was talking to always felt just the tiniest bit rude. Especially since it was Riku that they were talking to here. Sure, the two of them could be a bit competitive sometimes, but Sora didn’t _actually_ think he was better than his best friend. Riku was much stronger and braver than himself in almost every way.

Though admitting it made something in his chest feel funny, and not due to bruised pride.

He followed after a second, heaving himself up onto the cold marble of his throne that lifted him taller than Riku for the first time in his life.

Teal eyes fixated on his own. For half a second, Riku smirked, seeming to find humor in this. A tiny flash of white reflected the morning sun. His fangs— barely standing out against the pale pink of his lips. It disappeared before Sora could properly catalogue the expression.

Squall began to speak.

“We have a… proposition, that we need to talk to the two of you about. The details were more-or-less finalized last week, but with your update from yesterday, we’ve come to a complete conclusion.” He started. “Your marks are incredible. Coming from Vanitas, that is very high praise.”

Cloud nodded. “It was clear from your spar that he wasn’t lying. That you could draw first blood against him is remarkable for someone your age.”

“Essentially, we’re happy with what we see.” Squall continued.

The words confused Riku a bit. He’d utterly failed his task yesterday, if falling off the volcano was any indication of that.

“And that coincides with a different problem that we’ve been looking to solve.” Squall turned to his husband to pick up the speech from there.

“There’s a great darkness that’s been threatening the palace lately, spiking in power at seemingly random intervals. We’re certain that it doesn’t belong to Vanitas.” Cloud explained. “It’s much too massive to be only him. As far as I can tell, it matches the magic of a dark sorceress that we were unable to drive from the kingdom in previous years…”

Sora didn’t know why, but the ancient scar on his wrist flared with pain long forgotten.

The blood drained from Riku’s face. Sora was the only one who seemed to notice, suppressing the urge to rush to his side and hold him upright in case he was in need of support.

“The one good thing is that the magic appears mostly dormant. It hasn’t done any serious harm yet, or at least, nothing that can’t be taken care of at this point in time. However, this does put the safety of our son at risk.”

Riku shook off his unease and nodded at the words.

“We’ve decided that he’s going to need extra protection sooner rather than later.” Cloud said confidently. “Although it isn’t exactly protocol, as you are still too young to be knighted, the position is yours to take in everything but name.”

Wait.

_Did that mean…?_

“We’d like to ask you to guard our son from now on.” The king confirmed.

Riku was unprepared to deal with so _many_ emotions all at the same time. He was suddenly hounded by a million things at once: timidity, disbelief, and confusion, but also _happiness._

It was what he’d been waiting for, for as long as he could remember. This was what he wanted. This was _it._

Riku choked on his words in his haste to accept.

“What about you, Sora? Do you accept him as your protector?”

For a moment, Riku was unsure if Sora would agree, knowing that he probably wouldn’t like the indication that he was too weak to defend himself… but his worries flew out of his mind like sand in the wind as a beaming smile dawned on his best friend’s face.

“Yeah!” Sora yelled, jumping up to his feet.

Before Riku could think to blink, he was being tackled by an overeager mess of limbs to the floor.

“Way to go, Riku!” He shouted. Burying his face in the crook of Riku’s neck, Sora wrapped his arms around Riku’s torso tight enough to squeeze all the air right out of him. “This is just _so_ awesome!”

Riku squirmed in his friend’s grip, unable to breathe for a myriad of reasons as his heart started to pound so hard that he was sure Sora could feel it through his armor.

“Yeah, yeah… lemme go,” He managed to wheeze through his lack of oxygen.

Sora continued hugging the life out of him for another few seconds, then finally relented in time to give Riku a solid breath. Riku panted, lightheaded, as the moment caught up with his body, made a little more difficult by his blood finding prime real estate all along his cheeks and neck instead of where it should be in the rest of his limbs.

Soft laughter from Squall interrupted the moment. He was smiling in that reserved way he often did, though it was easy to tell that he was happy for them. “I’m glad that there won’t be any issues there.”

“That being said,” Cloud piped up, over his husband. “You’re going to have to discuss the new living situation with your mother first. The castle likely would have no difficulty providing you a room attached to Sora’s, but we understand that she may be hesitant to move you from the servants’ quarters. Bring her to us if it proves a problem.”

Lighting up, Sora grabbed Riku’s hands, showing off the twinkling sapphire stars in his eyes. “It’s gonna be like a sleepover every day!”

Too much. It was too much to take in all at once, between his multiple ( _multiple!!!)_ points of contact with Sora and literally _everything else._ Riku could barely decide what to be panicking over. His heart was happy to decide for him, slamming at his chest every time Sora excitedly caught his eye.

Squall whistled to recapture their attention.

“Sora, we will permit you to go to with him just this once. Don’t abuse it.”

At that, Sora practically rocketed to standing, dragging Riku and his melted bones up with him. Riku felt as though he’d dissolved into pure light instead of darkness, the warmth sloshing around inside of him and making him too heavy and too light on his feet at the same time.

“Come on, come on, come on! You’ve _gotta_ show me around,” said Sora, singsong voice cutting straight through Riku’s chest cavity. “Let’s go!”

Helplessly tongue-tied and tripping over his clumsy feet, Riku was herded out the door to the sound of the kings’ laughter. 

\---

Aqua knew that this would happen to her little boy eventually, of course, but it still hurt when he approached her with excitement brimming in his eyes, telling her of how he planned on moving away.

It wasn’t a true separation— Riku would continue to live at the castle and train as he always did, even visit her at the same times that he would have otherwise. He was just changing where he would sleep so as to protect the prince better during the darker hours of the night.

She had no right to be feeling like she was losing him. Riku was only doing what came naturally to him, which was protecting those whom he cared for.

Besides, Riku looked so _happy,_ being led from place to place by his literal puppy of a best friend in time to stop him from touching the fireplace, or pricking himself on Ven’s sewing needles, or from faceplanting on Aqua’s bed, where she kept her sword hidden under the covers during the daytime. The prince was a whirlwind of danger and potent cuteness. As a mother herself, she sympathized very much so with the boy’s parents in their decision to assign him a bodyguard. So, really, it didn’t matter how she felt on the subject.

Riku was laughing at the prince’s jokes without reservation, and for the ones that didn’t land, he groaned like he’d heard them a thousand and one times too many. His body was loose and relaxed unless he was pulling his friend away from some new way to hurt himself, and even then, the two of them laughed it off, Riku flicking Sora’s ear as the prince got distracted by another shiny thing across the room.

It was like she was looking at herself back in the days of her youth.

As she was thinking on it, Ven pushed his way through the door to the kitchens, carrying a steaming tray of fresh chocolate-chip cookies like the little godsend he was.

Sora was on them in a fraction of a second, Riku following closely behind to scold him for not checking the temperature when he had to draw back and shake his hand in the cool air. He whined at Riku to give him his hand, because _Riku, your hands are always super cold! Help me out, would you?_

Riku looked horrified by the prospect of holding Sora’s hand in front of his family. He stammered out a refusal that sounded _just_ like when he was trying to deny reading old love ballads in the library, fake as all hell and entirely for show. The prince interlaced their fingers anyway, and Riku turned distraught, a flustered whine escaping his throat as Ventus broke down laughing at the two of them.

Unable to suppress a laugh either, Aqua snuck up behind her younger son to reach over him and grab a cookie for herself.

She watched with sad eyes but a warm smile as Riku fled from Sora’s side and began to take his things from his corner of the room. Though Riku’s personal possessions were meager, just a few books scattered here and there, a bag’s worth of clothing, and some throwing knives, Aqua knew she was going to miss seeing them there in the morning.

Ventus managed to wrangle a fistful of hyperactive prince into his grip, playfully wrestling him to give Riku ample time to finish packing up. Silently, Aqua walked to where he was kneeling on his bed.

The numbers muttered under his breath appeared to be counting how many shirts he’d stashed in his bag.

“Riku?” She called, quietly.

“Yes mama?”

“Stay safe,” Aqua pleaded, drawing him into her arms for a hug. “Stay warm. And never forget that I’ll always be here for you.”

His tiny arms wrapped around her, still so small, still so fragile, even though she knew that the last part was only confirmation bias, an old line of thinking left over from her days of rocking him to sleep in a cradle. Riku wasn’t fragile anymore.

He was nothing close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What time period is this fic set in? The answer is yes.
> 
> Also, alternate fic title: Vanitas gets cucked to the Sonic and the Black Knight OST for four chapters straight because the author needs to develop Riku's battle skills (ultimate cringe comp)


	11. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty everybody! Welcome to a segment that I prefer to call the interlude, because it is NOT a full chapter. I am still working on my next update. It needs just a little bit more time, a few more days at most- but I assure you, it's on its way. This is a little appetizer to hold you over until then. 
> 
> On a few other notes: Happy late Samhain/Halloween!!! Si celebran Día de los Muertos, espero que ustedes y sus familias hayan tenido un buen tiempo con sus antepasados. And thank you so much to everyone who reads and comments!!! I love you all <3

Days came and went as days often do, watching the two friends grow up and grow older with every passing season.

There was spring in the prince’s eyes come morning. For the first time, he experienced what it was like to see the sunlight of the kitchen being interrupted by another body before noon, one bustling from cabinet to cabinet in attempt to get breakfast ready. Sora cut up some strawberries for them to share with a glowing smile on his face.

Later, the summer brought along with it long nights for Riku, in which the heat of the air would seep under his armor and bake him near to death, even at night, when he was out training with Vanitas. It was grueling work, but the bright sunrise in the morning was beautiful enough to make up for it. He sighed into the sun and returned to wake his friend.

It was during the fall that Sora finally managed convince his parents to let him out to the palace gardens. Under Riku’s careful supervision, Sora was allowed to browse through the farmers’ market set up there, trying every pastry and fresh meal that he came across to the detriment of his friend’s wallet. As much as Riku complained about it, he loved seeing his friend out in the open for once. The munny didn’t matter when they were allowed to sit by the ocean while munching on a bag of sweet honey candies.

On the days of early winter where there was no thunder, there were still copious amounts of rain, and the two of them liked to watch it from one of the balconies of the living castle, Sora bundled under several layers of fluffy blankets. They played chess for as long as Sora’s attention span would last out. When that inevitably failed, Riku would suggest an indoor spar, which Sora took up excitedly. The movement got his blood pumping and his heart racing. Riku could empathize for very different reasons.

But not everything was right.

That winter went down in the record books as one of the Destiny Islands’ longest, the rainy season lasting out until about halfway through when spring usually would.

Riku felt it in his magic. Though the light users of the kingdom began to grow weary, he and Vanitas only got stronger the more the winter went on, or more specifically, their darkness did. Riku could only barely keep it suppressed in waking. In sleep, it was nigh impossible. And what with his ever-persistent nightmares…

He solved this rather intelligently by reducing his sleeping hours to three or less per day.

If Vanitas were to find out what he was doing, he’d flay him alive, saying that the detriment to his health would be putting Sora’s safety in jeopardy. Riku disagreed. The time that he wasn’t sleeping, he spent guarding his friend instead. Riku was a force of bristling cold that sat pensively at the foot of the prince’s bed throughout the dark hours, watching, listening for interruptions in the silence.

Even when the winter finally ended and the springtime came back again, several cycles of seasons later, Riku couldn’t quite suppress his darkness the same way that he used to. It was unwilling to go back into the cage that he kept it in before. At least, not all the way.

His darkness was growing.

Was winter really _over_?


	12. The Thirteenth Hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooooooh boy this chapter was a difficult one. I'm honestly a little bit scared to post it, 'cause it kind of contains the first big Plot stuff and whatever... and I'm super afraid that the romance stuff came way too soon in the story. I've never written a true romance before, so I'm a bit inexperienced in that regard. Please let me know if it seemed too jarring and sudden, because I will not hesitate to pull it back into production for a while if need be. 
> 
> That being said, thank you to everyone who leaves comments/kudos! You guys really keep me going, I mean it <3

The whole world came to a standstill on the morning of midsummer day, when Sora’s brilliant blue eyes snapped open with excitement, already smiling like a bonfire as he launched out of bed, running to Riku’s room as fast as he could.

Every element had been called present that morning to observe the beginning of their hardest years to come. They stood in the walls, in the floor, drifting amongst the air. Everything was adrift with pure magic, for today was not ordinary by any standards.

Today was the prince’s twelfth birthday.

He raced to Riku, who’d only just gone to bed an hour prior, and launched himself onto the bed, scrambling up to where Riku was curled to shake his shoulders vigorously.

“Wake up, Riku!” Sora laughed as his friend sputtered indignantly. “It’s our birthday today!”

It wasn’t, of course; it was only his birthday, as Riku had unknowingly turned thirteen the day before. But even if he did know that, he wouldn’t have minded much, and neither would Sora. There were twenty-four hours in a day, which was plenty to share between the two of them.

Riku heaved a sigh. Pushing the covers off of him, he found with no small amount of annoyance that his hand dissolved into darkness during the night. Not understanding the significance, Sora only giggled, swiping a finger through the place where his friend’s hand should be as Riku tried his best to push him away.

The element of darkness itself was watching him today, luckily, and gave back what it had taken easily when Riku called.

Both the prince and the changeling proceeded to their kitchen as Sora spoke excitedly about going to the midsummer festival for the first time ever this year. He wished, privately, that he could go to the actual one in the town past the palace walls, but he wasn’t going to complain about being let out of his room.

Light nodded politely to darkness when they crossed paths trying to follow them.

Sora was so happy during the day that he could only barely keep his feet anchored to the floor. Riku had to keep a firm grip on his hand the whole time to keep him from drifting away, and though his ears burned viciously red all the while, he admitted that he was enjoying himself as well. People stared openly at the prince, gawking at his presence when so few in the castle had ever seen him, aside from a few strays who’d caught him sneaking out in the past. He waved from where he was hovering a foot or so off the ground as Riku desperately attempted to pull him back down.

It was at the stunning orange sunset that King Cloud declared that Riku was now old enough to be knighted. Aqua and Ventus hollered almost as loud as Sora did, when he was suddenly unable to maintain his weak grip on gravity for any longer, floating up above Riku’s head upside-down while grinning like a madman at the end of his friend’s reach.

The elements gave their blessings and bowed their ways out gracefully one-by-one. They were glad that the cursed children were finding solace in something, before everything in their world would go wrong.

Absentmindedly, Riku remarked that his back was feeling sore. 

\---

A few weeks later managed to catch Sora and Riku red-handed in the middle of sneaking out of the prince’s quarters. Karma was a backstabbing jerk, and Riku wasn’t going to forgive it for choosing today of all days to take its revenge.

Sora just had to go and spill cider all over a noblewoman’s blouse. Realistically the occurrence hadn’t been his fault, as the only thing that he’d done was move a little too quickly past her table, but angering a drunk knight’s girlfriend was an ill-advised act, no matter one’s status. The man had wasted no time challenging Sora to a duel. Upon being reminded by several dumbfounded bystanders that Sora was the crown prince, and thus couldn’t legally _be_ challenged without it being considered treason, he’d changed his target to be the prince’s guard. And so the blame fell to Riku.

The prince was incredibly apologetic about it, though his words were as good as nothing when doomed to fall on deaf ears. It was fine. Riku knew that he’d have to fight a pointless battle at some point. Everyone did it, even if it took longer for some people.

He’d make it quick. Fighting Vanitas had proven time and time again to be more difficult than anyone else he’d ever fought (aside from Sora, who was just really, really good at being distracting), so he didn’t honestly think that the duel would last longer than a few minutes.

“You have something to say to me, kid?” Yelled the other guy, sloppily waggling his sword in Riku’s general direction.

Oh, yeah. It also helped that the dude was smashed.

Riku rolled his eyes. “Just that your breath stinks.”

The insult took a moment to register in his mind, and when it did, his features contorted into a scowl. He took the shield off his back to hold it in defense position. Naturally, it was upside down.

“I’m gonna run you through for that,” He snapped, staggering forward. “I don’t like being talked down to by the prissy little preteen who thinks he’s the king of the godsdamned knight squadrons.”

“With people like you in my division, I might as well be.”

The man scoffed as the crowd around them began to murmur their bets back and forth. For a second, Riku locked eyes with Sora, who still looked like he wanted to deescalate the situation, though even he was starting to see that it was a lost cause

_Good luck,_ Sora mouthed to him. Riku nodded his acknowledgement of the words, readying himself for battle. He instinctively tried to suppress the throb in his chest that came from looking at Sora’s eyes.

Crouching to a fighting stance, the man barked out a number of insults that Riku, frankly, was impressed that he’d dare speak in front of his prince. Lucky thing that it was his job to defend Sora’s honor, because he was going to enjoy beating the shit out of this guy.

“You think you can take me?”

Riku snarled, momentarily baring his fangs. “Bring it, you crazy old bastard.”

Their blades collided a few times in quick succession, forceful, but nowhere near the amount that he was used to dealing with from the captain. All he had to do was keep an eye on which direction the guy was coming from and make sure that he matched it. Slicing up, he knocked the shield right out of his loose grip. It didn’t deter his opponent, which spoke to how intoxicated he really was.

He threw himself into a roll that ended just past the man’s feet, popping up in time to stab the hilt of his sword into his shoulder. Yelling, he dropped his sword, then turned to throw a punch.

Riku dodged easily. Using his magic would just be unfair in a battle like this, so he aimed a jab at the man’s stomach and then jumped away. “What kind of a punch was that? I’ve met children more adept than you!” He taunted.

His sword stabbed through the air in front of him, catching the man’s shirt on the tip of his blade. That was the problem with challenging someone to a duel in formal wear: while Riku was always wearing some kind of protective armor, his challenger was not, and so his opponent had the rather unfortunate effect of being vulnerable to playing dirty. Delicately so as not to hurt, he sliced the sword up his chest, stopped at the shoulder, then pierced right through the shoulder pad. Riku had been pushing him further towards the wall the whole time— now, the reason was obvious. The crowd around them cheered as Riku delivered a kick to the chest that sent him slamming into the wall, sword pinning him at the same time like a fine specimen of butterfly.

There was a presence over his shoulder. Riku pulled his sword from the drunk man’s dress jacket, letting him fall in a heap to the floor as he spun to meet another weapon.

The noblewoman had decided she wanted in on the action. Gripped in her hand was a sharp double-moon ji that managed to repel Riku’s blade when he went to counter it. Not to be outdone, Riku followed through his slash motion with a roundhouse kick.

“Hey, that’s not allowed!” Sora yelled from the sidelines. “Riku won his duel. You have to re-issue the challenge!”

The woman surged forward and stabbed the ji at his chest plate, but he slashed his sword through the center of its handle, effectively snapping it in half. From her waist, she pulled out a sword to parry his next strike. Riku dug his feet into the ground. Gritting his teeth, he pushed as hard as he could to overpower her without causing any serious damage.

A third weapon entered the ring. It was a long steel blade emblazoned by Sora’s crown, ending in a golden handle, and attached to Sora’s steady hands. The prince maneuvered his weapon to push back against the woman’s as well. Right before she would’ve given out, she jumped away.

Sora joined at Riku’s side. He raised his sword in front of them, guarding their fronts, while Riku focused on activating a vision spell. “Clairvoyance!”

Behind them, he saw the man getting up, and he turned himself to face him instead. The two were back-to-back now, each comforted by the presence of their friend guarding them in battle.

“We need to end this before it starts wrecking the building.” Sora whispered.

“I _could,_ but my darkness is too much to handle a strength level so low.” Riku shook his head. “And it’d be painful for civilians.”

Some of the time that they didn’t have was wasted by Sora clicking his tongue at him. “There’s no shame in asking for help, Riku.” And even though they were facing opposite directions, the spell let him see the coy look on the prince’s face just enough to be embarrassed by it. Riku prickled

“There is when I’m supposed to be _protecting you!_ Get out of the ring. I can handle this myself.”

“Why are you always trying to do everything on your own, huh?” He teased. “It’ll go faster if we work together.” Not allowing him room to object, Sora jumped headfirst into another round with the woman in front of him.

Grunting unhappily, he had no choice except to relent, and moved to knock his teammate back to the floor while attempting to keep a close watch on Sora’s fight. Only years of practicing clairvoyance allowed him to split his attention and see both places at once. To his relief, Sora was able to duel and subsequently disarm the woman in little time, though, less fortunately, she wasn’t done fighting. Riku delivered a swift kick that knocked his opponent out cold and sprinted to the prince.

He shot out his arm to grab her foot before it could land a proper hit on Sora. A cold rage settled in his stomach when he met her eyes; suddenly, he felt rooted to the spot, so angry that he could barely suppress his darkness from choking her then and there.

_How dare you try to hurt him._

Frost spread over her body like wildfire from his fingertips, until the woman was frozen solid. The block of ice that was her body toppled over.

They’d won.

“Let this be a lesson to anyone else who wants to fight me,” Riku shouted to the crowd. “If I find even _one_ scratch on him, it’s your graves.”

“Aw, he’s just riled up,” Sora assured their audience.

“I’m being serious.”

Melodic laughter echoed in his ears, warm hands pinching his cheeks as they began to flush red with the contact. He swatted at Sora’s hands and stumbled away before his heart could find the time to react. (Or so he attempted. No time was fast enough.)

The crowd dispersed and continued their activities, exchanging money between themselves based on who they’d betted for. Riku knew that they really should continue on to the gardens before Sora’s parents got wind of the fact that they’d been hanging around in the dining hall, but his friend was insistent upon stopping to rest up for a moment, and orders were orders.

“You were so cool!” Sora exclaimed, propping his feet up on the table as Riku rolled his eyes at the informality. “The way you showed your fangs at the beginning— you looked just like a wolf! Or maybe a-” Riku flinched and cut off his sentence with an abortive gesture.

“I didn’t mean to do that. It was involuntary.”

He tilted his head. “Really?”

“You think I would expose them like that if it wasn’t an automatic reaction? I was angry that he was challenging us. That’s it.” Looking down at his hands, he clenched them into fists, and huffed curtly. “I don’t know why I’ve been getting so _mad_ lately.” The last part was whispered under his breath, though Sora still heard it.

Sora was unable to obscure the disheartenment in his gaze, offering a melancholy smile that made Riku quickly look in a different direction. “Well, I still thought you looked cool.”

Of course he would.

It would take some great act of the universe to get Sora to see the bad in him, somehow, which he was just as grateful for as he was frustrated by. His fangs weren’t normal. He couldn’t… _talk about them,_ as if they were. But he could tell that Sora didn’t understand this.

“What about you, huh? I didn’t know you had a sword like that in your arsenal. It’s practically a crime that you haven’t let me classify it yet.” Riku said in attempt to divert Sora’s attention. The prince brightened.

“Oh, you mean Kingdom Key!”

The weapon was removed from its sheath immediately, pressed into Riku’s waiting palms. Sora swung his feet happily back and forth as he started to tell him about bribing Vanitas to put in a request for him at the forges. While he spoke, Riku analyzed the composition of the blade, then went to measure it with a coil of rope that he kept in his satchel.

His hand missed the bag when he was distracted by a servant tripping on the other side of the room. He winced and withdrew, then offered to help her stand up again, but then he realized that he was talking to thin air. Sora burst out laughing.

“I- I forgot to deactivate clairvoyance again. Great.” The changeling mumbled. He wrangled a tiny sliver of darkness into reversing the spell and then firmly sealed as much as he could.

Measurements proceeded as usual from that point. It was truly a remarkable sword, though he couldn’t get past the idea that something about it was hauntingly familiar. Voicing this feeling made Sora look sheepish.

Riku studied the way Sora’s eyes fixed on the floor. “Um, uh…”

He pointed towards Riku’s belt. Unsheathing his own sword, Riku laid them side-by-side and saw that they were nearly identical, save for the gold color of the hilt in exchange for Riku’s uniform silver.

“I asked Vanitas to make it look like yours.” Sora admitted shyly. “You know. I thought it’d be fun to match.”

There wasn’t much that he could say through the butterflies ravaging his chest, so he hummed instead. Sora was just so…

Stars, Sora was so _cute._

The thought was immediately smashed and locked in a tight box as soon as it appeared in his mind. “I’m flattered.” Riku said, pretending to be sarcastic.

\---

Being thirteen was difficult at the best of times, but there were a few ways to make it worse. For example, being thirteen _and_ having confusing feelings your best friend was hell on earth. Ventus could confirm form personal experience that there truly was nothing shittier.

He felt the bags under his eyes deepen every time he made the mistake of watching his brother work. Riku would always be trailing behind the prince with another pile of books, looking at him reverently, like there was nothing else in the world, until Sora would turn around. Immediately, he would switch to a cool and indifferent expression that he was absolutely _sure_ he’d seen on Vanitas before. It was the most frustrating thing in the world.

Could Riku even make himself more obvious?

Yes, he could, and Ventus didn’t know why he wouldn’t.

What did he have to lose by standing a little closer to him, like he so obviously wanted to? The two of them had been friends for a long time now, and Sora was one of the most understanding people Ventus had ever met. There was next to no danger of destroying their relationship by holding hands or something.

At this point, he’d settle for anything that would get Riku to stop retreating to the corner of the library while he and Sora were working, watching with an expression so hopeless and yearning that it made Ventus want to kick the prince off the stool he was standing on to reach the higher shelves and demand he give his little brother a hug right this instant. But he recognized that thought as nothing productive.

So instead of committing treason, as it certainly would do no good to prompt Riku to attack him, Ventus collected his cool and shot a sympathetic glance towards his little brother, gesturing for him to stop lingering around where he was alphabetizing spell books and go join the prince on the other side of the room.

Riku’s eyes jumped to Sora, who was balancing precariously on his stool as he strained to reach a book that was still a little too high up for him to grab.

He looked back to Ventus and sliced his throat with his finger.

_Dramatic as always_. Ventus rolled his eyes and continued sorting through his book pile. Just to make Riku angry, he asked “Your Highness, do you need assistance over there?”

“Nah, I think I’ve got it,” The prince responded, trying desperately to push higher on his feet. “I’m not… _that_ short.”

His leg wobbled and he grabbed onto the shelf with a yelp. Riku instinctively shot his hand out, wanting to steady him, but he realized he was too far away and retracted it.

“Riku?”

“What?”

A grin. “Go help him, please.”

The look in his eye almost made Ventus feel guilty for suggesting it— Riku genuinely looked like he might be sick as he approached behind him.

Gently, Riku swept Sora off the stool and set him down to the side, leaving the prince looking stunned to find his feet suddenly on the ground. Due to the extra five or so inches that he’d gotten during his last growth spurt, Riku had no problem nabbing the book that Sora had been reaching for. He offered it to the prince while keeping his eyes glued carefully to the shelf. “Here. Anything else you need?” Riku asked gruffly.

Interestingly enough to Ventus, a light flush appeared on Sora’s cheeks when he went to take it from his friend’s hand.

Far too invested in his own world of personal misery to notice, Riku took turns calling Sora short while taking a small handful of meaningless insults, neither of them noticing or stopping when Ventus paused his alphabetizing to regard the incident. The thin veneer of Riku’s indifference vaporized after a half-second of eye contact. He made a soft noise in the back of his throat once the blue of Sora’s eyes had become too much for him to handle, visibly swallowing from nerves.

Like snow in a blizzard, he stormed away to another corner of the room to find some random productive task to take care of.

Ventus watched the two of them for another moment. Sora was still standing exactly where Riku’d placed him, looking quickly between him and the book as he brought a hand up to tug at the collar of his shirt. And Riku, predictably, seemed to be trying _very_ hard to disappear behind one of the many bookshelves.

_Geez._ Had he ever acted like that around Vanitas?

Ventus closed his eyes in thought. He didn’t think so, because he probably would’ve thrown him out the window, locked him in his office void, tripped him, punched him, or otherwise injured him a lot more than he already had when they were teenagers. Ventus swore that he could still feel the shadows in his clothing, or the leaves stuck in his hair.

It was a good thing that he was never quite that socially inept around his own best friend. Being even half as shy and avoidant as these two would’ve caused so much more potential suffering, Vanitas being as abrasive as he was. 

In the back of his mind, Ventus wondered what Vanitas would say if he was here to see this. He’d be laughing, maybe, or kicking Riku’s ass for being so obtuse.

It was, unfortunately, impossible for him to join in on the suffering, as he would only just be waking up now that the sun had been set for an hour or so, and Vani tended to be rather sluggish and irritable in the early hours of the night. Or any hours. Really, he was always quite irritable, and far too much so to be in the library before midnight. 

Besides, it was getting to be about time for him to kick his brother and the prince out of here anyway, since the view out the windows was basically nothing more than a dark void of black interspersed only by the vague outline of rain hitting the panes. They should get back to the living castle before it would be too risky to keep Sora out of his quarters. Rain was able to mask dark magic easier, make it harder to detect.

Ventus paled a tad when he remembered the last time that a dark mage had passed the palace guard. Sure, Riku was nowhere near as weak as he had been as a baby, but that didn’t stop him from feeling the slightest bit paranoid.

People without the criminally insane amounts of magic that those two possessed had to be more careful about these things. The very idea of facing a mage of _her_ caliber made him feel fidgety near the places that the library sconces didn’t illuminate. A small part of him was afraid that he’d suddenly lose consciousness again, waking to find his brother kidnapped, dead, or worse.

He really needed to stop thinking so much.

Ventus opened his eyes to see that Sora was now seated on the floor, thumbing through the pages of the book that Riku’d gotten for him with a look of deep concentration. Then, before he could say anything to him, the library door creaked open.

There was a sudden rustling of movement that indicated Sora running to a hiding place, and a cold wave of darkness shot through the air as Riku dissolved his body into noncorporeal shadow. Ventus turned to see who was coming in.

Struggling against the ancient door hinges was Aqua, her blue hair falling across her face in sweaty strands.

“Ven?” Aqua called, stepping lightly into the room once she was sure that the door wouldn’t crush her while walking through. She smiled upon catching sight of him. “Do you know where the old military records are? King Cloud requested to see them, but I couldn’t find any in the southern wing library when I went to check.”

She wasted no time sidling up to the bookcases and scouring their titles. It was relieving to see that the intruder was Aqua, not the kings, here to scold the prince for disobedience.

Without thinking too hard, he answered, “Uh, yeah… they’re in the cabinet over there.”

He pointed in the direction of the records. As she nodded and moved to where he was indicating, he jolted, realizing that it wasn’t the smartest idea to send Aqua to the only cabinet that Sora could’ve hidden in in their immediate vicinity.

“Actually _,_ let me go get them for you!” Ventus amended in a rush. But it was too late, as she had already placed her hand on the door and pulled it open.

Sora’s outline was visible for about a millisecond, pressing as much as he could into the back wall, but before there was any time for Aqua to notice, a plume of black flame erupted from the floor of the cabinet to obscure him. There stood Riku, swathed in darkness to the point where he was an unrecognizable flickering mass of purple and black in the approximate shape of a human.

He passed her a ridiculously large and heavy tome with the royal crest on its cover. While Aqua was busy recovering from her surprise, Riku shut the door again from the inside.

Aqua and Ventus looked at each other.

“Ventus,” She started. “Why is Vanitas in the library cabinet?”

So she hadn’t recognized the darkness as Riku’s— that bought them a little bit of time. Ven searched quickly through his mind to find some believable excuse for Vanitas to be here right now.

“I found him there when I walked in. Figured it was safer to leave him be,” Ventus lied.

That was by far not the weirdest thing that the captain had ever done in a cabinet. Aqua squinted, then seemed to decide that trying to make sense of Vanitas’ doings were above her pay grade. She sighed. “He’s going to mess up his back if he keeps doing things like this. Make sure Vanitas actually makes it to a bed before passing out tomorrow, okay?”

“Hey, it’s not my job to watch after him!”

Grinning, Aqua shifted the heavy book to one arm, placing the other smugly on her hip. “Sure it is. You’re the only one he listens to, and you know, _someone’s_ gotta keep him in line.”

_Why me?_ Ventus complained in his head. _The guy’s an adult._

Kind of. Legally, anyway _._

Wait a minute, what was he thinking? Vanitas wasn’t even here.

Aqua didn’t wait for him to answer her, marching over to the door again with intent to leave. She’d probably be finishing her shift once she handed the records over to the king. That meant he’d have to start worrying about dinner soon, as it was his night to figure out something to do. He pondered on this long enough to miss her calling goodbye and closing the door with a rusty squeak.

After a few minutes of carefully measured silence, the door to the cabinet burst open, and a line of dark flames raced out of sight almost too quickly to process. Sora tumbled out a second later. He was significantly more rumpled than he had been going in, as though he’d been running his hands through his hair in a very failed attempt to straighten it.

“Wait, Riku!” Sora yelled.

The prince reached out, but his friend had already faded into the darkness of the room. 

Ventus resisted the urge to go after him. He knew that if he did, Riku would just find a new place to hide until he’d calmed down and reformed, since he hated to be seen in his darkness form for whatever reason. He settled for the next best thing, instead walking towards the reading couch where Sora had sulked over to and was now sitting on while smacking at his forehead.

“What happened?” Ventus asked carefully. Surely nothing big; they were only in there for a few minutes at most.

Dejected eyes looked back at him. The prince made a vague gesture with his hand, looking equal parts frustrated as he was… inexplicably sad. 

Oh. It was one of _those_ issues.

The prince shook his head. “I-I grabbed his hand.”

He raised an eyebrow, gesturing for him to elaborate further. It was no secret that Riku was averse to touch, but this was _Sora_ he was talking about here. He’d been the one exception to the rule since the day they met. The easy closeness between them was something that Ventus had even envied in the past.

“On accident! I just panicked when he shut the door, and I wanted something to hold on to.” Sora insisted. “I swear, I wouldn’t have if I’d been thinking properly…”

Ventus hummed. “Why not?”

“Because he doesn’t like it.” Sora answered with an air of finality. His thin frame sank into the couch cushions until he was almost obscured by them, looking tiredly out at the library. Momentarily, the prince’s eyes landed on the book that he’d abandoned on the floor in his haste to hide from Aqua. The rain from outside sounded louder than before.

As he sat there thinking, Ventus realized that he couldn’t quite make heads or tails of that explanation, not when he was absolutely certain that Riku _did_ like it. Riku’d practically been falling all over himself around Sora today, and if he’d made anything clear, it was that he wanted to be much closer to the prince than what he allowed.

“I don’t know about that,” Ventus said softly. “But hey, I’m not around him as much as you are, so I suppose you’d know better.”

\---

Ventus ended up staying for about another hour before Sora shooed him out, assuring him that Riku wouldn’t have left him alone, no matter how angry he was.

It took an almost embarrassingly long time to convince him. He’d hovered by the door for nearly twenty minutes, coming up with excuse after excuse for why he hadn’t ended his shift, until the prince was able to pry the real reason out of him. Once Sora knew, he was adamant about the fact that he would be fine.

Riku quietly agreed from his place in the shadows. First and foremost, Sora was perfectly capable of defending himself. His sword skills were nothing to scoff at. Secondly, Riku was offended that his brother actually thought he’d leave the prince alone in the library when it was dark outside. Even in cowardice, Riku was more honorable than that.

Never mind the fact he couldn’t quite bring himself to reform again.

Could anyone blame him? It’s not that he didn’t want to reform, as the state he was in right now was much more than uncomfortable, but rather, he _couldn’t._ Not when his hand still tingled with a warmth that should’ve been long gone.

The obvious reason for the delay was because his dark form was a kind of stasis: his body didn’t exist in enough capacity to change, so however he was feeling at the moment of transformation would stay until he’d regained a physical form. But of course, it still _felt_ unfair, regardless of the logistics of it. His humiliation was perfectly preserved the way that it had been the second Sora grabbed his hand. And truth be told, he was kind of tired of it swirling around inside him.

It was intensely difficult to think when he was permanently out of breath (though he didn’t actually need air in this state), so maybe he hadn’t been exhibiting his best decision-making skills when he’d refused to face the consequences of his own stupid emotions by shrinking away into the black of night.

He was just… very ready for it to stop.

Riku had been waiting for the weird, fluttery, floaty, _dizzy_ feeling to go away for years now, to no effect. Maybe he should be acclimated to it by this point, but it kept taking him by surprise whenever it manifested in his chest cavity like a second heartbeat, familiar, and exactly as unrelenting as the first. 

He was at a loss for what to do about it. So, he did nothing— Riku remained in his torturous state until the sound of Sora’s breathing evened out around a half an hour after Ventus left, his body completely encompassed in the fluffy couch cushions as a fire crackled merrily in the hearth next to him to the time of the rain.

Golden-red light illuminated Sora’s sleeping face. Riku, shivery and feeling at the edge of a cliff, drew himself from shadow to shadow, slowly approaching the hint of dark space where the fireplace did not reach.

The sconces on the walls had dimmed to mere flickers without Ventus there to relight them routinely. Since Sora was clearly lost to the world of dreams, uncaring of the light levels, the room fell to Riku’s control more and more. He didn’t do anything with it except move, slowly creeping up to where the prince lay.

Riku got as close as he dared.

Sora’s expression was peaceful and sweet, the firelight trailing across every soft contour of his face; heedless of their effect, the freckles on his face glowed like real stars, and the shadows cast by his lashes made them look even longer and darker than they already were.

It was like his heart didn’t care that it was supposed to be frozen in time. What was usually his chest, already overcome by warmth, surged with so much _more._

Like blood, it soaked him and made him feel heavy, made him lightheaded and unable to think. The only coherent thoughts in his mind had been reduced to the steady rhythm of Sora’s breathing, and even those petered out into nothing past what _couldn’t_ be ringing in his ears, because they didn’t exist.

As Riku looked on at this, he found that he was unable to hold himself under any longer, limbs reforming and casting off the darkness, similarly golden in the light.

His pale skin was a canvas of crimson embers. He watched through a thick pane of glass at himself in another life, another reality, as his trembling hand inched closer to Sora’s, where it was flat against the fabric of the reading couch. And when he carefully, oh so _carefully_ intertwined their fingers, Riku burned.

His body didn’t care how much shame was lingering in him, for instead, it rushed him with a feeling so overpowering that he almost couldn’t bear it. He fell to his knees, breath hitching in the ghost of a sob. Sora’s hand was so warm. It was so _warm._

The action was far too little, far too late. He should’ve held him like this when Sora had needed it, wanting comfort from a stressful situation… more than anything, he wanted to be the Riku in the one lucky timeline who did do that. It would’ve felt much less pathetic than how he was now.

“I’m sorry that I’m like this, Sora.” Riku whispered not above a breath, as he enveloped the prince’s hand in both of his own. Gently, he brought their hands to his forehead, pleading, a question of forgiveness. “I don’t know how else to be.”

That was his honest truth. Riku didn’t know how to separate himself from the poison in his body, be it the darkness that he was born with, or the _something else_ that he didn’t know how to place. Both were his burdens. Both had been made Sora’s, too. If only he could tear it out by force, he’d do it in a second, offering everything that he was and everything that he knew how to be to the eternal flames of oblivion.

There was no point in entertaining the silly fantasies in his mind of a boy- _in love,_ his mind forced him to acknowledge- with the one next door. Sora was a prince, and Riku wasn’t even a knight yet. He had suspicions that he wasn’t even _human._

His soul was nothing but darkness and despair. Selfishly wanting to keep the prince close to him, wanting more than what had? It made him sick to his stomach to think about. He was worse than unlovable, Riku was no better than the shadow creatures, the heartless.

He was so tired of fighting with himself.

Riku’s passions… and his love… were nothing more than illusions, smoke and mirrors that filled the empty shell of his skeleton. All he wanted was for the darkness in him to be torn away. That was the only way everyone could be happy, since everyone knew that darkness couldn’t love.

So then why did he feel this way?

And why did it hurt _so badly?_

Eventually, Riku rose to his feet, collecting the prince in his arms with the gentlest possible grip that he could muster. Sora was so warm against him that it almost brought tears to his eyes.

The firelight must’ve still been messing with his head, because some force beyond his control made him lean down, down, down, all the way to Sora’s cheek, hovering right there for a moment. His heart began to beat so quickly that it was painful.

No matter how many times he tried to repeat the mantra, scolding himself for how selfish he was being, reminding himself of how _disgusted_ Sora would be if he awoke, Riku couldn’t stop what he was doing. It felt, in that moment, that the entire culmination of his being was building up to this, after which he could die inconsequentially and fade into nothing. So he took a quivering breath in.

And pressed his lips against the soft swell of Sora’s cheek.

His knees were abruptly too weak to hold out for long, warning him as much as his head was attempting to that whatever he was doing was dangerous, but he still couldn’t bring himself to stop. Something possessed him to press another devastatingly slow, gentle kiss to Sora’s forehead, and another right at the tip of his nose.

Riku’s heart had essentially given out in his chest. It was skipping a beat so long that the difference was null, though it hardly meant anything to him. His brain was as good as gone.

_No,_ said one last emergency function in his head. _You shouldn’t be doing something like this without asking permission._

_This isn’t right._

_You don’t deserve him. He’s too good for you._

_You’re a monster,_ the voice insisted.

Outside the large windows of the library, the sky suddenly lit up with lightning, and Riku felt a pang of incredible dread.

When it faded, the candles in the remaining lit sconces all snuffed. It was pitch black now except for the fire, which Riku backed away from, forcing his body into fight mode despite its protests that he was too dizzy for a battle. Something wasn’t right.

He found his worry to be correct, putrid green flames bursting from the fireplace the second he’d taken himself and the prince out of range. Riku looked up to see a woman with great twisted horns standing on the opposite end of the room from them, one hand resting on a gnarled old staff.

The next flash of lightning revealed that she was now standing a few feet closer.

The green fire provided just enough light to show her eyes, following Riku’s after they darted to the window, him pulling Sora closer to his chest protectively. She laughed, and the sound was worse than anything he’d ever heard before.

“That’s right, young Riku,” The woman crooned. “You _are_ a monster, and a pretty nasty one, at that.”

A long, bony finger pointed to where the prince was still sleeping peacefully in his arms. Riku bared his fangs, a deep growl coming from his throat as the urge to protect him became overwhelming.

She was unaffected by the gesture.

“I’ve never seen one take advantage of their meek little prey in such an interesting fashion!”

Her footsteps sounded like crunching glass as she approached. Riku’s growling elevated in volume, his darkness shattering the bonds that he kept it in to roar at its full potential. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything, only continuing forward as Riku began calculating as many escape routes or attack advantages as he could.

“Should he have been awake, I’m sure he would have surrendered to you, such _weak_ little things those light users are,” The woman continued. “Give them a taste of honey and they give you a hive. He would’ve fallen to his knees for you, _begged_ you to take his heart.”

The lightning usually would’ve woken Sora immediately. The fact that he was still asleep made Riku nervous, knowing that whoever this woman was, she must’ve done something to keep him like that when she broke in.

“So why would you do it when he was asleep? By all accounts, it makes _no sense._ ”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Riku yelled.

“Your duty!” The woman screeched. “The reason you were created, filthy half-breed! You were supposed to inflict him with love, then _kill him._ I said nothing to you of falling in love with the target.”

Riku blanched. “I’ve never met you before. I know I haven’t.”

“You’ve been conditioned to have one of those horridly poor human memories, haven’t you? It was the day of your birth, fool.”

He didn’t know what to feel, so he just held Sora tighter.

“Whether or not I fall in love is none of your business!” Riku spat. “Your anger doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know you. What right do you have to tell me to kill my best friend?”

“I own your soul.” The woman said, smiling coldly.

For some reason, he knew the words to be true, and Riku had to force himself not to move in case she would do something to Sora.

“I gave it to you, and I can take it away.” She threatened. When lightning flashed again, her form was gone from the library. “You have failed your mission. Go forth, protect that little nuisance of human life you’ve claimed as your hoard… but know that you will be cursed for your disobedience. Every day of your life will be plagued with pain, so long as you love.”

He hadn’t needed an ambush to tell him that.

The fire in the hearth extinguished, all trace of the woman gone, and alone in the library, knowing that no one would be able to see, Riku collapsed to the floor with Sora still held firmly in his arms.

Sora was just beginning to stir, confused that he wasn’t in his bed, but before he could regain consciousness, Riku shushed him and lulled him back into sleep.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” He mumbled, freeing up one quivering hand to card through Sora’s hair. “It was just a bad dream.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AASDFGHJKLLKJhgfdsaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
> 
> Now that all my fellow gays are here, how's my form?


	13. Eyes Like the Ocean, Blood Like the Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHTY LADS... major warning before we start this chapter: If you are sensitive to excessive mentions of blood, injury, or vomit, maybe do yourself a solid and proceed with caution! It's not particularly graphic in my own opinion, but as a wrestler, I'm pretty desensitized to most forms of body horror. So just to be safe, take care of yourselves please! 
> 
> Another note that may or may not be useful to those of you who can't speak Korean: the word "dobok" (도복) is used once, and refers to the uniform that is worn for Taekwondo. I know that it was invented in the 1940's but I couldn't think of any other way to describe what the outfit looked like, so, suspension of disbelief I guess? Speaking of other languages, I do need to review some of the older chapters to make sure I haven't accidentally included Spanish or French (I'm pretty sure that I haven't done the same with Korean since the characters look so different). Let me know if you ever need clarification, because my idiot brain doesn't always notice if I slip into another language while writing.
> 
> And as always, if you have left kudos or a comment, I owe you my life. <3

When he was ten years old and Riku was eleven, Sora had taught Riku how to swim.

He remembered it clear as day— the way that they’d both been sunburned and covered in sand rash already, having been wrestling on-and-off on the shore, how Riku had been hesitant to go near the waves, how bright the summer sun shone off of his friend’s hair. It was one of those days that Riku didn’t have practice, so he was less reserved about tiring himself out. He thought of how Riku’d sat and dipped his feet thoughtfully into the shallow tide.

Riku wasn’t exactly afraid of the water, not in the way that Sora was scared of lightning. He simply hadn’t ever clicked with it very well, preferring to have his feet connected to the ground when possible. There was something about being able to feel the earth that made him overall more comfortable. Sora couldn’t relate, seeing as how his natural reaction to being happy was to float off the ground, but he understood having a comfort element.

It’d taken a lot of convincing to get him to wade up to waist-height. Riku kept himself firmly planted in the sand below, toes halfway buried in the silt as he stood stoically with his arms crossed.

The water was easy to move through for Sora, giving way to his every whim to dart here and there in the crystalline waters. He surfaced right at Riku’s side, waist-height being a tad closer to chest-height for Sora, and grinned encouragingly when he saw how genuinely worried Riku seemed to be to move in any direction. To be nice, he’d told Riku to grab his hands. That was, of course, back when Riku would still do that without freaking out for the most part, so it wasn’t the same spectacle that it’d been in the library. Riku accepted the help, clinging to Sora like a vice while the prince told him patiently over again how to float in the deeper water. He took a step forward. Then two.

“Are you ready?” Sora asked. Once Riku nodded, he counted to three, then the two of them took great deep breaths and plunged under the surface.

In the water, Sora chanced opening his eyes to find Riku’s screwed tightly shut. His hair was floating around his shoulders, looking silky and soft in the gently filtering light, and when Sora swam forward just a bit to get closer to his friend, Riku’s eyes finally cracked open. They were the same color as the ocean around him.

He smiled sadly at the memory, cuddling closer into the couch that he was lying on.

Some part of him really missed the casual intimacy of that moment. How unthinking it’d been to grab his friend’s hand, or how he hadn’t hesitated to tackle him to the ground afterwards for a spontaneous fight as the two of them laughed.

To be realistic, it was a pretty large part, one that drew comfort from hugging and hand-holding and other such frivolous things that Riku insisted he was too old for now.

Sora figured that age wasn’t really the reason he’d stopped. The discomfort on his face when Sora tried to initiate contact was obvious even to him, and he had to respect that need for space, regardless of how much he craved touch. It was just… frustrating. And not on Riku’s part, who couldn’t help being the way that he was, but on Sora’s.

He didn’t know why his body had manufactured this scarcity, only to want for its removal. Life was a complicated and infinitely confusing thing.

In the glow of the fireplace, Sora could pretend that the squishy cushions beneath him were actually his bed, and that the warmth radiating from the flames was the empty place where Riku’d been, him getting up to grab a cup of tea for only a moment, and then he’d be back to snuggle up on Sora’s side with a book. He remembered very well what it was like to have that extra pressure against him. Curling his hand, he thought of how it felt to do so around Riku’s arm.

Without that contact, Sora felt like a ship that had broken its anchor. He was untethered to anything.

It reminded him of the time that they saw that very thing happen to a boat out on the water while eating breakfast. The two of them had been watching it like a hawk the whole time it was out there, suspicious of whoever was stupid enough to go fishing during a windstorm so powerful it might’ve been a hurricane.

Riku was the one who’d realized it was broken first, in a funny twist of real life, and as gallant as he was, he insisted on helping evacuate the idiot before something terrible happened. He cared not for the railing of the balcony or the height to the bottom, launching himself off the side as Sora screamed at him to be careful. Not wanting to be left behind, he too jumped off the balcony, slowing his fall with an aero spell.

The boat was being thrashed around in the waves like nothing more than the tiny ones of paper for children to play with. One huge wave had crashed into it then, and that was its last thread, launching the person inside into the raging ocean as their boat was smashed to smithereens.

Sora wasn’t particularly good at metaphors. He couldn’t really say who was what or why, but he could at least say that he related to the boat, and that looking on the scene now that he was a little older, he had to admit with no small amount of embarrassment that he was jealous of the person that Riku’d swam out to save.

By that point, Riku had been well into his days of refusing to touch Sora, so as stupid as it was, he remembered burning so intensely when he saw his best friend holding someone else that close, even though it was only to rescue them from drowning.

He hummed, considering everything forwards and backwards and forwards again as he slowly slipped into unconsciousness.

The rain outside the window made it easy for his mind to put him back in that memory instead of coming up with something original to dream about. Except, twisted by his ever-building, constant need for contact, he seemed to find himself in Riku’s arms on the shore.

It wouldn’t have made any sense should he have been awake; Sora was a better swimmer than Riku, and never would’ve needed saving at all. His stupid brain showed no signs of caring, imagining Riku carrying him diligently back to the castle through the storm, unmoved by the wind or the rain.

“Thanks, Riku.” His dream-self muttered. Somehow, he was able to hear Sora’s words over all the noise, because that was how logic worked when asleep.

“Anything for you,” Riku replied.

Then, as Sora giggled, blushing, Riku pressed a kiss to his cheek, then his forehead, and the tip of his nose.

\---

The next morning was very weird, for both of them.

Sora blushed every time that he so much as looked at Riku, unable to get the sensations from his dream off his skin. It stayed after he’d washed his face that morning, scrubbing until the tip of his nose was almost raw, and yet the lingering ghost of Riku’s lips stayed exactly where he remembered them, making proper eye contact with his best friend over breakfast impossible. He couldn’t risk looking at Riku’s eyes. He was scared that if he would, Riku would somehow know what dream he’d had last night.

And that’s why he didn’t really notice how Riku actually looked that morning, which, for lack of a better word, was _terrible._

Sleep was already something that Riku tried to keep to a minimum, but hell if he could be bothered to risk dreaming after what’d happened last night— if it were up to him, he’d never sleep again. Riku’d spent the entire rest of the dark hours guarding at the foot of Sora’s bed. In the one brief moment in which he almost nodded off, the image of green fire scared him back awake in no time at all.

The dark marks around his eyes were so pronounced that it looked like he’d rubbed charcoal powder on his face while getting dressed. Funnily enough, Vanitas would probably congratulate him for it at practice tonight, since he’d been trying to get Riku to wear charcoal since he’d started training under him. It was the captain’s “brand” or something like that.

Whatever Vanitas would think about it, Riku was still having a pretty bad time, tired enough that he could barely focus on actually putting breakfast in his mouth, never mind chewing and swallowing afterwards.

Neither of them spoke until it was time for them to figure out something to do for the day. Riku didn’t have any plans except for practice after midnight, so he was otherwise free…

Oh, who was he kidding? There was no _way_ he’d be able to get anything productive done today. His eyes were already burning from being awake for so long. If he tried to do any studying or physical labor, it was likely that his head would just explode.

Sora reflected the sentiment wholeheartedly. They both stayed on the balcony overlooking the beach, Sora propped up on the railing as he was licking the last of the crumbs from his muffin off his fingers.

The air was heavy with another promise of rain, but in that way that does after a long time of storming first. Everything was tinted grey, the sounds of the island quieted to a whisper save for the sound of the waves on the shoreline down below. Not even the seagulls were out today. In the trees surrounding the view, their leaves were soaked and heavy, dripping pools of leftover moisture onto the waterlogged sand.

Riku cringed at how his darkness spiked with it. As the rain grew nearer, he felt more and more like something was going to go horribly, terribly wrong.

“Hey, Riku.” Sora said blandly, picking at the loose ends of his bright red sweater with hands clammy from the cold. “You wanna spar?”

There was nothing he wanted to do less. The idea of drawing his sword at Sora made him want to throw up right now, remembering what that woman had said in the library about killing him. _Killing_ him. Riku knew his strength, he knew how to manage it, but just the thought of slipping up, of striking at the wrong moment by only a fraction of a second reminded him that the whole process wasn’t up to him. It was up to fate.

Did he really trust fate to keep his best friend safe from him?

“Sure.” Riku answered, because he was incapable of telling him no.

A few hours and many rounds of battle later, when the rain finally fell from the sky, Riku couldn’t hear it past the screaming heartbeat in his ears, mostly because he was too busy choking and gasping on the ground as Sora cast his sword aside and ran to him.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, I didn’t!” Sora yelled, looking in horror at the blood soaking through the back of Riku’s shirt in two messy lines. Riku groaned and rolled to his side to curl into a small ball. It wasn’t Sora’s fault. He knew that, but had no way to communicate it to him when the pain was so strong that he couldn’t think.

His back felt like it was getting electrocuted, spasming in ways that it shouldn’t, rocketing between numb and oversensitive so fast that the feelings were indistinguishable. Just under his neck, there was an invisible bar piercing him through, forcing the bones of his shoulders apart. Sora was hyperventilating somewhere outside of his field of vision with no sign of calming down. “What do I do? What do I _do? How do I fix this?”_

There was a sudden commotion, Sora flailing to his feet to start taking off his sweater. It caught on his head, then again on his earrings, leaving him frustrated, tears bubbling up at the edges of his eyes by the time he actually got it off. He balled up the material quickly and dropped to his knees.

The fabric of Riku’s shirt was thick with blood now, peeling away unpleasantly when Sora pushed it up as far as he could get it to assess the damage. Whatever he saw couldn’t have been good, because the noise he made was distressed when he went to wipe away the blood with his sweater, Sora babbling that he didn’t mean to hurt him again and again.

Riku wanted to protest the treatment. That sweater was good yarn, and he knew he’d be hearing about it from Ventus if he discovered what happened to Sora’s birthday present.

“Potion…” He was able to force out of his throat. “Don’t… _sweater… potion._ ”

“I don’t have any!” Sora despaired.

There was nothing that they could do until the pain eased, so Sora just tried the best that he could to keep the sweater pressed firmly against Riku’s back.

Riku’s shoulders felt like they were rearranging, the very bone aching down to the core. He refused to scream. In one hand, he fumbled around to find his sword, pulling the leather strap off its grip to bite down on. His fangs bit easily through the first fold and dug into the second. It tasted horrible, but it was better than expending the energy necessary for screaming, and _much_ better than using his hand.

Darkness buzzed at the surface of his skin. Like it was bleeding out of the deep gashes in his back, he found that he couldn’t stop it, the magic taking on a mind of its own. Sora drew in a sharp breath as it flowed over his hands.

The magic gushed from his wounds, burning, _stinging,_ pain reaching a crescendo.

Suddenly, the dampened material of the sweater was being pulled away from his back, replaced by Sora’s hands. “Light!” The prince hollered, praying that his stupid emotion-based magic would work with him for once. “Come on, come on! Light!”

Riku was shaking from the strain of staying silent, curling further in on himself, though the only thing that it did was make his back hurt even more.

_“Light!”_

Light exploded from Sora, overtaking the darkness that was pouring from Riku’s back in a burst of golden sparks. Their energies collided, shifted between gold and purple for a few moments, then turned lilac, and disappeared altogether.

Sora’s palms dripped with crimson red.

The pain didn’t disappear, only lessened to the point where the ache was dull and easy to ignore. Riku ripped the leather out of his mouth. Silently, Sora shifted his sweater to a drier spot and put it back on the gashes. He compressed them just under the point of hurting.

Riku shuddered out one last breath, then slumped over, surrendering to whatever Sora was doing because he was simply too tired to fight it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know how this _happened_ …”

His voice was high and trembling, and he knew that if he were to turn around, he would see tracks of tears on his face. Riku wanted to tell him that he’d done nothing wrong. Then again, what was he supposed to say? That he’d accrued a grave injury from no source while sparring with swords? Sora wouldn’t take that as the truth, no matter how true it was.

Riku weakly shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”

He would be, as long as Sora was. That was the fun thing about curses that no entity- magical, godly, or otherwise- could account for.

\---

Practice with Vanitas was interesting after that, to say the least.

It might’ve been the first practice week ever that he hadn’t come up with some insanely difficult and pointless task for Riku to complete by the end of it. Everything was suspiciously normal, the captain only inviting him to a basic form demonstration in the courtyard for the past few days, which required no serious physical strain.

Mainly because form demonstration was a fancy name for “watch Vanitas meditate and attempt to imitate it”.

Vanitas sat cross-legged on the bench facing the water fountain. His fists were loosely closed, pressed together above his solar plexus, and his muscles were relaxed as he sat calmly in the same place that he had been for over an hour now. Vanitas’ reflection in the water of the fountain softly rippled with the movement of its inhabitants: koi fish, swimming around each other in an endless dance under the image of the moon. It was the perfect picture of contemplation.

Riku couldn’t focus for shit.

“Captain?” Riku asked.

His teacher gave no verbal response, instead allowing the flames in the nearby torches run purple with his magic to assure that he was listening.

Ordinarily, meditation wouldn’t be nearly as much of an issue for him. He liked silence. He liked stillness as well, and stars knew that he was good at overthinking things for uninterrupted periods of time. The problem was his back— namely, the giant marks that were still there against the odds, rubbing painfully against the fabric of his dobok.

They weren’t brimming with darkness right now, thanks to the light spell that Sora had vehemently insisted that he cast before he retired for the evening, but the protection was quickly fading as the night drew onward. The growing pain made it incredibly hard to focus, and the lack of sleep over the past few days was also coming around to haunt him. It made his eyes itchy, head fuzzy, and every now and again, he could even swear that he was starting to see things out of the corners of his eyes.

Even bigger of a distraction was this solid feeling in his gut that relentlessly told him to return to the prince’s side, to watch for _predators,_ of all the weird urges in the world. Riku wasn’t entirely sure what to think about that one.

“I don’t know how much longer I can stay like this.” He admitted, words echoing off the edges of the fountain.

Vanitas huffed, flames flickering back to their usual bright orange. “That’s the point of the exercise, dumbass. You’re supposed to endure it until you don’t feel it anymore.”

“I can certainly say that I’m not feeling it.”

The captain opened one of his golden eyes just a fraction of a degree. Unlike usual, his anger at the snappy comment was mitigated by the long time spent keeping calm and level for the activity. When Vanitas took a breath, the torches flared and then receded in time with the expansion of his lungs.

“Stop thinking about pain. Don’t let your thoughts linger on fear or insecurity.” Vanitas advised. “When your darkness finds its natural balance, the hurt that you feel in your physical body will become secondary.”

He didn’t want to do a damn thing to acknowledge his darkness, nor was he particularly thrilled to close his eyes, knowing that he might lose himself and fall to the temptation of sleep if he wasn’t incredibly careful. Relaxation and discipline were not worth what one of his nightmares would do.

What small measure of magic that kept his darkness at bay would dissolve, allowing the biggest of the aforementioned problems to get a thousand times worse. However secondary the pain would become, Riku would die before he could get back to his room in the morning.

“Just let me go back to Sora,” he said, ducking his head in humility. “I don’t think that I’m in fighting form today. I’ll take a supplementary some other time if that’s what you want.”

The sound of the water swirling around the swimming koi was the only thing that could be heard for what felt like miles out. Vanitas hummed, surprisingly considering what Riku proposed.

“Fine. If you’re going to be fucking up my meditation, I don’t want you here anyway.” The captain affirmed. “But first, I want you to tell me what the hell that stuff on your back is. I’ve been curious.”

Brutal honesty was the best policy when it came to Vanitas, so he spent a moment thinking of how worst to phrase this.

“Mostly blood.” He responded, head nodding forward with a rush of nausea.

The torches all looked lime green.

\---

It was a good thing that he’d already conditioned himself to function on little to no sleep, since kneeling in front of the washroom mirror at night was slowly replacing the few minutes of rest he’d catch here and there when he was guarding Sora for the evening.

He couldn’t stay in the prince’s room after Sora fell asleep anymore. It hurt too much for him to stay close, almost like an oxymoron, since Sora was his only sense of relief at the same time. Cursed wounds were immune to potions and healing magic, he’d discovered, but they weren’t immune to anything else, including the soft look in his friend’s eyes.

This made for a very difficult problem to solve.

The pain in his back had yet to subside completely. During the day, Sora would try to soothe his wounds with light, and that helped, but it couldn’t do everything. They did have to separate occasionally. Whenever the prince’s light was gone, the gashes broke open, darkness tried to force its way out of his body, and Riku, hurting beyond belief, locked himself in the nearest empty room he could find to sweat it out. Rather, _bleed_ it out.

And that was where he was now: three days without so much as a moment of sleep, seven days since the marks had first appeared, crouched on the floor of Sora’s washroom with blood and darkness running down his back in rivulets.

Pure, unadulterated fun.

Riku wondered if this was what the woman had meant when she said he would be cursed with pain. He’d expected something much more… metaphorical, he supposed, as the people who had the magical and technical knowhow to go around casting curses at others were typically not the kind to be straightforward at anything.

Congratulations to her for being different. At least this was something _new._

If he had more presence of mind, which he absolutely did not, then he’d be doing more research on who that woman was, what she wanted, or why she apparently owned his soul. But as it stood, he was too weak to do much other than purge the contents of his stomach into a bucket while trying desperately not to make too much noise.

Riku wiped his mouth off with a shaky arm and muttered angrily about curses and dumb green ladies with stupid horns.

A noise sounded from right outside the door then, small enough that most people never would have noticed it. The changeling tensed. Whatever’d made it had frozen, too scared to move as it seemed to check for Riku’s reaction.

“Sora, go to bed,” Riku chided. “It’s two in the morning.”

The prince sighed, angry that he was discovered, then resigned to his fate and made a disapproving grunt. “I should be saying the same to you. You’ve been in there since ten.”

For a second, he considered playing it off as a fever, but he realized that the only thing that would do was make Sora even more worried. He wouldn’t buy it anyway, not when he knew about what’s been bothering him for the past few days, and _especially_ not when Sora had it in his head that it was his fault.

“Do you need me to use my light again?” Sora asked softly, pressing a hand against the door like he was going to open it. “If that’s why you’re in there… let me help. Please.”

“I told you to go to bed.”

The effects of his words were so strong that they were physical. Riku could feel him bristling with righteous fury from through the door.

“I’m not going back to sleep when I know you need help! Come on, at least let me do this for you.” Sora pleaded. “My light can make it stop for a little while.”

As much as he wanted the relief, he didn’t want to keep Sora awake with this nonsense. Riku couldn’t even tell which effects were from the curse or which were just the product of his slowly deteriorating mental state from being awake so long. That was no condition to let Sora see him in.

“So what? It’s just gonna come back in another half an hour. There’s no point.”

Another random surge of pain in his shoulders caused him to retch into his bucket for a moment, though anything that he could’ve thrown up had long since been ejected. The muscles in his back cramped as soon as he straightened up again. Pounding his fist on the floor, Riku tried his absolute hardest to stay conscious, his vision going fuzzy and black until the bruising on his knuckles snapped him out of it.

There was a very loud bang over his shoulder. He was too dizzy to turn and meet the source, which was fine, as it presented itself only a moment later with a burst of burning light. The door smacked against the ground, detached from its hinges.

“Wh- _did you just break down the door_?” Riku coughed.

A flood of light entered the room with him, already searing into his skin and fighting away the darkness by mere proximity.

Sora stepped over the door and began walking over to where his friend was lying. “There’s never a good reason to suffer, stupid. I don’t care if I’ll have to do it again.”

Riku tried to shy away from Sora’s touch, but his vision was still swimming somewhere in between the void and the hard stone floor, so he wasn’t able to do much more than slip forward off of the bucket and land on his side. The gashes on his back gave a jolt of electric pain at the sudden movement.

Before he could do anything about it, Sora placed his hand under Riku’s shoulder blade.

“ _Light._ ”

Every single muscle in Riku’s body relaxed at once, leaving his head to fall slack, and the constant buzzing of his headache dissipated like the smoke that followed a recently extinguished candle. The place where Sora’s hand rested was the only part of him that hadn’t gone totally numb to all sensation at the command. It was hot like a furnace, and so, so gentle.

Sora was saying something that he couldn’t hear. Riku was lost to the world now, head spiraling, limbs uselessly twitching when he tried to move them. They’d finally had enough of his poor management, surrendering control to Sora instead.

“How long have you been awake, Riku?” The prince asked, face morphing into an accusatory look. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

Riku suddenly realized that his mouth had been moving. He didn’t remember what he was saying, if it was anything at all, and then because he could, he snorted in delirium. “Seventy… around seventy-six.”

It took a moment for the number to click in Sora’s head. Having no way of telling if he was speaking English or not, Riku wasn’t entirely sure that his reply made sense until Sora’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

“ _Seventy-six?_ ” He exclaimed. “As in seventy-six _hours?_ ”

The lack of pain to keep his mind in one place was really starting to show. Riku didn’t have the strength to nod, and it seemed like his vocal cords were starting to tank as well. All he managed to get out as the light overtook him was “Almost seventy-seven. Like two sevens.”

Then his body shut down entirely.

\---

_“Hey, Riku!” Sora shouted, running through the sand. “Look how many shells I found!”_

_Dangling from his hand was a little bucket filled with shells of various sizes, so many that the top of the pile kept shedding the lighter ones as he moved, unable to maintain the unstable shape. Riku gave a mischievous grin. That may be a lot, but he was almost certain that his amount was bigger._

_“Put ‘em here. Let’s see which one of us got more.”_

_The two of them emptied their buckets onto the ground and began to dig through for their favorites. They showed each other a million different varieties, trading cowries for conches and moonshells for abalone. There were ones of all colors, all shades, and yet Riku couldn’t find any that were just right. He wasted no time bragging about them, regardless._

_Sora pouted once they were finished counting, realizing that he’d lost, even though it was only by three. His smile was back again in only seconds._

_“Eh, whatever,” He said, searching around their messy piles for a specific piece. “I still think that mine are cooler.”_

_Riku puffed up his chest. That was untrue; his shells were much more amazing. When he went to tell Sora so, he was silenced by a saltwater-drenched finger pressing firmly against his lips. His heart flipped._

_“See?” The prince said. Then he held up a little scallop shell, turquoise on one side, silver on the other. He’d never seen one with colors like that before._

_On further inspection, he realized that it couldn’t be a scallop— in fact, it was a dragon scale, one that had fallen from the sea dragons of the great deep, right into Sora’s hands._

_Sora smiled brightly, crown piercings glittering like flares in the sunlight. “The colors reminded me of you, ya know?”_

_And he felt his heartbeat in his ears, trembling, loud enough that he was concerned Sora may be able to hear it if he tried. It was like drumming. Unnoticing or unbothered, Sora just leaned back on his arms and tilted his head up to the sky, scale going down with his hand to press into the golden sand beneath. His freckles were numerous and beautiful._

_He couldn’t help but remember what Aqua used to call them whenever Ventus had borne his similarly dotted shoulders: “Angel kisses”. What he wouldn’t give to be the angel who’d kissed all of Sora’s into place._

_The thought sent his heart racing even faster, practically galloping as he turned his flushed face away from him and out to the water._

_“Yeah, well,” Riku said, voice low. “I’d return the favor, but I don’t think there’s anything around here that’d match the color of your eyes. Not unless someone’s dropped sapphires into the sea…”_

_Surprised laughter came from Sora. “Heh, you think my eyes look like sapphires? That’s nice of you to say.” His cheeks looked a little bit more sunburned than they were a moment ago._

_Unlike how it’d actually gone in waking, in a dream, Riku had enough confidence to inch his hand closer to Sora’s. They got closer and closer. So close that the tips of their pinky fingers bumped together, causing a particularly hard beat that took Riku’s breath away._

_Their fingers pressed together a little more, and then Sora moved his hand so that it covered Riku’s._

_He was no longer holding the dragon scale. Riku couldn’t find it in himself to care much, too preoccupied with the way that his best friend was shuffling nearer to him. All of a sudden, they were shoulder to shoulder, and Riku couldn’t think. Everything was completely blank except for the roaring fire in his chest. Fates have mercy on him, he was sure that he was going to faint if they got any closer at all._

_A hand was cupping his cheek, gently pulling him to face Sora head-on. “Tell me,” Sora said carefully. “Are they the same color from so close up?”_

_His best friend’s eyes were already sliding shut in anticipation for something, and though he no longer had the live reference, he didn’t need one. The color was burned into his mind. “No.” Riku replied, eyes half-lidded._

_There was a soft press of lips onto his own, sweet and lingering._

_Sora trailed his hand down his body with movements so slow that they were tantalizing, coming to rest right on Riku’s pulse point, which had to be so thunderous that there was no way he couldn’t feel it. When they separated, Riku saw stars._

_“They’re indigo.”_

_And then he felt pain like nothing he’d ever experienced before._

_\---_

Riku woke up gasping, seizing the covers of his bed with iron-tight fists.

It was like there was a knife carving deep into the muscles of his back, brandished by something crazy, something unskilled; as though it was serrated, it caught on his skin every few seconds, and like a branding iron, it fucking _burned._ Riku had no breath to scream with no matter how much air was in his lungs.

The darkness in him flared like it never had before, bigger than itself. He felt the barely-formed scabs on his back break open with force.

Why was this happening? _Why?_ It was supposed to be a nightmare— he wasn’t expecting a normal dream, which he hadn’t had in _years,_ and he wasn’t expecting this insanity to come with it.

Instead of filling the room like his darkness usually would, Riku felt it concentrate into something behind him, building some kind of structure. The blood from the new marks that were appearing dripped down the sides of his ribcage like hot wax and soaked into his mattress. He was dizzy from the scent of metal, wanting desperately to not be conscious for how much it hurt, for how many sensations were grating against his abused body, but he knew that this must be a part of it. He had to be awake for the suffering to take full effect.

When the darkness finished what it was doing, something intensely heavy and jagged immediately collapsed over him, the farthest edge of it scratching his calves. It gathered again as Riku’s senses started going haywire.

He could feel it. _Feel_ it, as in, the structure was a part of him.

All he could do was turn his head just a fraction to the side. When he did, he became so close to throwing up that he had to shut his eyes again. They were bones. A large cage of bones, swimming with darkness that was dressing it with something, and the more that the darkness worked, the more of the structure he could feel.

Riku clenched his teeth and buried his face in the bedcovers. There was nothing he could do to stop it from happening.

After an indeterminable amount of time, the darkness dispersed, and he was left with a new set of limbs, large and stretching out past the edges of his bed. A final burn seared into his back. Then, it was over.

As soon as he had control over his arms again, he reached up to pull one of his pillows closer, smacking his face into it as hard as he could to scream like a godsdamned banshee.

Why wasn’t he just allowed to have a simple crush? Why did it come with all of this fucking baggage, or some accursed dream-turned-living-hell that fed off of his own personal feelings for his friend? Why did it come with so much pain? Who the hell did that woman think she was, cursing him for being a normal human boy with emotions? Or wasn’t he? _Wasn’t he?_

There was a voice in his head that reminded him of his darkness, of his fangs. Human was a very loose description of himself.

He stumbled out of bed on legs that kept giving out as he walked, the large _things_ trailing behind him on the floor and knocking everything in their span down or over. Riku all but raced through his hallway to the kitchen, then rounded the corner to the washroom, stomping over the door that still lay on the ground.

Before he could see his reflection, he thought better of leaving the entrance unobstructed. He snapped his wrist up, a wall of black flames roaring from floor to ceiling in the door’s old place.

Riku limped to the mirror, fell down to his knees, breathing for a long minute. He grasped the mirror on either side and raised his head to look at himself.

Wings.

He had _wings._

And he almost couldn’t bear to look at them.

It was all that he could see when he closed his eyes, the sparkling, opalescent silver on the back, the teal on the inside that looked exactly like his irises. They were huge. Against his better judgement, he peeked just one more time at the mirror, turning to see as much of his back as he could. The blood-splattered nightshirt that he’d been wearing when Sora knocked him out was reduced to baren tatters, almost completely shredded by the wings erupting from his body. It was gruesome to see just how much blood was on him now.

No wonder he was so dizzy. The fact that he was still alive could only be chocked up to the curse not letting him die.

There was a mess of turquoise lines swirling over his back that marred the pale flesh beneath, forming a sigil that looked like a big, bubbly heart. He nearly shouted when he saw it. He recognized that sigil. There was nobody on the Destiny Islands who wouldn’t.

A dream-eater sigil. Not the nightmare sigil of the fae, nor the bravehearted symbol of the dragon clans. It was a mixture. The sign of the changelings.

Changelings. The shapeshifters, the ones that mischievous fae often switched out for human children…

Harsh laughter echoed in his ears as he buried his head in his hands, shaking. He didn’t need to look to know that the woman from before was standing behind him then, as despite the fact that he was no longer looking at the mirror, he could easily sense the great mass of darkness behind him that was very much not his own.

“I hope you like the gift I’ve given you, little one.” She said joyfully.

“You,” He whispered. “You’re the one who created me, aren’t you? You’re a faerie. _That’s_ why you own me. I’m your trick.”

His mind reeled with possibilities. He didn’t know why he would’ve been created, what purpose she could possibly have for someone like him. Judging by his very brief interactions with her so far, perhaps it was better not to know yet.

“Hell, knowing the legends, my existence is political sabotage.”

The woman smiled, placing a hand on his bloodied shoulder. “Very good.”

Riku found the strength to slap her hand away, but it in turn inflicted him with a wave of powerful nausea, and he had to grab the bucket still by the mirror to throw up. It seemed that she took pleasure in watching him suffer, smile never wavering as she listened to him choke.

“You see, little changeling,” She said, voice a horrific imitation of Aqua’s comforting, motherly tone. “All of this pain would cease if you embraced your darkness like I do. It wouldn’t hurt anymore, if you simply gave in… just one, easy kill, as soon as the prince turns seventeen. Nothing too difficult for a being such as yourself.”

_“Fuck you.”_ Riku spat, still lurched over his bucket.

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” The woman scoffed, rolling her eyes. “No matter. It’s not as though you have a choice.”

No. _No._ He wouldn’t do it. He didn’t care if it was a godsdamned blood curse. Sora didn’t deserve this. His best friend didn’t deserve to die.

“Stop these foolish feelings at once, or you’ll be forced to face the consequences, if the little _dream_ of yours didn’t make that clear.”

His cheeks burned. That was _private_. This whole thing was supposed to be private! His feelings weren’t some museum for her to be browsing, and he was already sick of being treated like they were. It was just an innocent longing for companionship. As guilty as he felt about it, he wasn’t going to take shit from someone using the things he couldn’t help to justify being a creep and an asshole, let alone a murderer.

“I’m looking after you, Riku… after all, you’re like a son to me. I only want you to be happy.”

Happy. Happy? Oh, he knew that was the fakest thing he’d ever been told. He wasn’t in the right dimension to be happy one day. Maybe in another timeline, in which he wasn’t a changeling, this never happened, and Sora would find something worthy in him to love.

“I seriously doubt that.”

Riku heaved, head spinning from blood loss, rage, curses, and restless sleep. With a burst of energy that he was sure to never find again, he flared his new wings out behind him to knock the woman away from him. When that didn’t work, the appendages still too weak, he whirled around, grabbed her arm, and gnashed his fangs into the delicate skin of her wrist. The woman shrieked as she teleported back to whatever hellscape she’d come from.

He was alone.

But he refused to close his eyes anymore. Dreams, nightmares— he realized as he sank to lie on the floor, that the difference hardly mattered when reality was twice as bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Descriptions of pain inspired by the time I herniated two discs in my spinal cord! Back injuries are absolute motherfuckers, and I will never forgive my wrestling partner for fucking me up three weeks before the varsity league :). No I'm not salty about it. :)))))))


	14. Smoke and Mirrors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ASDFGHJKLLKJHGFDSGW I'M SO SORRY FOR BEING LATE EVERYBODY!!! I was experiencing the worst writers block known to mankind over this one chapter and I rewrote it so many times that I have nearly an entire fic's worth of cut content for this one alone. Like we're talking 30,000 words of shit that I looked at and was just like... no. I can do better. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING JUST IN CASE: IMPROPER BINDING, MENTION OF SUICIDE
> 
> And last but not least, thank you so much to everyone who leaves kudos or comments, because they seriously make my day! I go back and read them every now and again when I'm feeling sad so thank you thank you thank youuuuuuuuuu <3

_“Then the mighty dragon killed the prince with his great big claws and giant teeth,” Riku said, wiggling his fingers. “Everybody else died too. The end.”_

_“That wasn’t the end of the story!” Sora laughed._

_Riku shut the book on his lap and got up, shaking his head. Tucking it back into the shelf at the corner of the room, he tutted, and turned around to look Sora in the eyes with a smirk. It was obvious to the prince that he was joking. That definitely wasn’t the end of the story, and they both knew it._

_“Sure it was.” He drawled, faking innocence. “Dragons always win in the end, you know. It’s unrealistic that the prince gets saved every single time.”_

_Sora couldn’t hold in his giggles at the words. “Who cares about realism? It’s cool when the knight climbs the hill with his awesome sword, whether or not the dragon could kill him!”_

_Riku hummed in contemplation. While he did that, he busied himself getting his satchel together to leave for the night, stockpiling potions in case the castle was planning to be particularly annoying for whatever reason._

_“That is true,” the boy conceded. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how the story ends tomorrow.”_

\---

“…And so today, his service will finally be recognized by the Royal Court, after many years of admirable dedication. We are proud to call forward knight-in-training Riku to receive the tools of knighthood and make his vows before his liege.”

King Cloud gestured to his son, and Sora all but jumped in front of them, not quite levitating yet. It was a close thing, though, as he was so light on his feet that he floated down on his last small bounce like a petal in a spring breeze.

“C’mon Riku!” He whispered, just loud enough that his friend could hear from where he was standing a few feet away.

Riku breathed, gathering himself.

All he had to do was step up and perform the rites. He knew the words like the back of his hand, enough that the panic that was wiping his mind clean would have no effect on his performance, the muscle memory able to carry him the rest of the way. He wasn’t worried about the ceremony. Everything would go according to plan.

As long as he remained calm, no one would suspect what he was hiding.

Riku’s legs moved forward without him, and he kneeled in front of Sora, grabbing his hand gently into his own. An attendant came up from behind him to help with the part that he couldn’t do by himself.

He had to keep repeating over and over in his head that the hands so close to his neck weren’t going to hurt him, or that it was unlikely that the attendant would notice anything under his cloak if nobody else had mentioned anything yet. The key was to stay _calm._

The necklace that had been clasped to his neck before the proceedings was taken off, replaced around his and Sora’s hands to hang from them while Riku would pronounce his allegiance.

“I vow to do right by the sword and the fist.” Riku started, the same as his brother had so long ago.

It wouldn’t be the same past that. His job was a little bit different, and constituted a different promise than the average Royal Knight.

“Additionally, to protect my liege before his title, and to always put his safety before my own. I swear fealty to his name. He has my protection, by sword, by magic, to my final breath. From now until death, I am forever in his debt.”

When his words were finished ringing over the crowd, Sora gave him a heart-stopping smile. He began his own half of the ceremony.

“I accept this knight as the extension of my…” He hesitated, and Riku almost had to stop himself from laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of forgetting which hand was his dominant one so he could name the other. Riku squeezed Sora’s hand for a second. The prince jolted imperceptibly, receiving the message. “left hand.”

Neither of them needed to look to know that Kings Strife and Leon were rolling their eyes. The crowd didn’t seem to pick up on the faltering, so they continued without issue.

“His protection is my stronghold. I swear in return to always keep his best interests at heart, for it is the least I can do as thanks. He has my blessing.” With that, Sora moved his other hand to rest gracefully on Riku’s shoulder.

Now it was Riku’s turn again. He let go of Sora’s hand temporarily to gather the necklace in his fist, pendant firmly resting inside. Then he took it once more. The silver crown warmed between their palms, and Riku leaned, pressing a kiss to Sora’s knuckles.

That never got easier or less shoulder-scrunchy with age, so it would seem.

Sora grabbed the pendant in his own hand, restrung it to hang from his wrist, and the two of them then interlocked their fingers. Riku was allowed to stand.

Once Riku was stable, their hands parted for a final time as Riku took the necklace from Sora’s wrist, then stepped forward to carefully clasp it around his neck, where it would then hang until Riku either broke his vows or died.

“The sword of your trade was forged by Grand Weaponsmith Terra, who enchanted it to most effectively channel your power.” King Cloud said, coming between them with a sheathed blade held out for Riku to take. “It is not required for you to use, if you would prefer to continue wielding Kings’ Defender, although it is recommended due to its accommodations for your magic. This blade is named Soul Eater.”

Riku felt the blood drain out of him as soon as he saw it, the blue dragon eye in the familiar-looking hilt seeming to taunt him. He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t freak out. Grabbing it with a white-knuckled grip, Riku unsheathed it and held it to the sky.

The blade was oddly serrated, forged to resemble the wing of a dragon. It wasn’t the color of Riku’s, but it came pretty damn close in terms of anatomical structure, enough that he suddenly felt horribly short of breath. Underneath his cloak, his own wings twitched.

_No. Don’t freak out. Everything will be fine as long as you don’t think about it._

“All hail the new Royal Knight!” King Cloud yelled. “Hail Riku!”

Riku tried his best to smile for the crowd. Ventus, Aqua, Sora, and even Vanitas were cheering as if to deafen the next kingdom over. He didn’t want to disappoint them. So he remained stiff, faking confidence, faking excitement, until the kings released him and Sora to join the commencing festivities, and Riku hastily made his excuses to the prince.

“I’ve gotta go take a breather,” He said, eyes wandering anywhere except for Sora’s eyes. One look would break his ability to keep up the lie. “I’m getting way too sweaty under my armor.”

Luckily, Sora didn’t seem to notice anything off. “Aw, you were nervous, huh?” He cooed. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got my own sword to hold off bad guys for a while. Just make sure you come back soon! I can’t join the table without my new knight.”

The prince let him off with a wave, running off to go find entertainment, or more likely to find trouble, which Riku would have to get him out of later.

Good grief. Riku allowed himself a moment to calm his heart before he retreated to the small gazebo outside of the courtyard that serviced as a powder room. There was no one there when he approached, so in his moment of need, Riku decided to be just a little bit selfish about his actions.

Trying to focus as he walked inside, he readied his stance, then raised walls of black flame on all sides.

There. That would deter anyone who got curious from taking a look at what he was doing.

Riku shucked off his weapon straps and dark blue winter cloak (he really had meant it when he said he was getting sweaty, wearing something like that in the island heat), peeling off the tight shirt he’d worn underneath to get a good look at his chest and back in the mirrors placed on the gazebo benches.

The wraps that he’d so meticulously used to bind his wings were still firmly in place. He analyzed them from a few different angles, making sure that everything had held properly before he’d get to undoing his own work.

He had to. It was getting too hard for him to breath with the bandages holding his lungs under so much pressure.

As he began to unwind the wraps, his mind wandered to his new sword, laying on the floor just a few inches away from his feet. Just his luck that he would get a sword exactly like the one from his worst nightmare. Such a beautiful sword, too— he could tell that the Grand Weaponsmith had put a lot of effort into making a shape like that into a functionable blade.

Despite himself, he was intrigued to see how it would fare in battle. Riku was nothing if not a lover of swords.

The thought didn’t hold him for long. He winced when his ribs were suddenly exposed to the air, horribly sore and angrily pink from being under stress for too much time. His back didn’t feel much better.

The worst of his pain was unquestionably his wings, which sprang free desperately, like they’d been about twelve seconds from being crushed into dust. They certainly _felt_ like it. If he’d bound them for any longer, he was sure he would have broken something in them.

Breaking anything in his wings was a bad idea at best, and a catastrophic one at worst, having discovered over the past week or so that they remained impervious to all types of healing magic. Riku did not want to find out how to set a wing without help, never mind all the complications that it would raise in terms of keeping them hidden.

That was why he had to let them free during his off-time. Any time that he wasn’t around people, Riku had to strip himself down and stretch out, giving himself both a brief opportunity to shake out the soreness and to breathe more deeply than he was able to otherwise. Breathing was inconvenient, painful, and overrated as hell. He didn’t recommend it for anything that didn’t need to in order to live.

His wings trembled, extending to their farthest capacity at his command. Although he wasn’t very good at controlling them yet, he supposed all of that would come with time and practice, and at the very least, they were eager to no longer be folded in such an unnatural manner, opening to shape his about twelve-foot wingspan.

He sighed when he caught his sleep-deprived eyes in the mirror, wondering when his life had gotten so fucked up.

Alright. Pity party officially over. Sora was waiting for him to come back, and on a day such as today, commemorating his service to the prince, it was a bad idea to leave him alone for so long.

Riku gathered the sweaty cloth of the wraps into his hands, pulled it taught, then, making sure that his wings were tucked in as closely as possible, began the process of binding them down all over again. Wrap after wrap went by, layer after layer, making it gradually harder and harder to breathe.

That meant he was doing it correctly.

\---

_“So what did the knight do?” Sora asked, excitedly shaking Riku’s shoulder. “Come on, won’t you tell me already? I wanna know!”_

_Riku sighed. All he’d wanted to do was read in peace, but it looked like he wouldn’t be getting any until he answered the question. He closed the book, which was a huge manual on edible wilderness, and turned to flick his friend in the forehead._

_“He killed the dragon. Took its fangs as a prize, the same as with the wings. Its eye was taken to be put onto his sword hilt.”_

_“Aw, really?” Sora responded, falling backwards onto his bed._

_What else had he been expecting? Stories always ended in the good guy killing the bad guy. The knight was expected to kill the dragon, or else it wouldn’t be a proper story, no matter his own opinions on tired literary tropes. Riku relayed this information to Sora, who pouted._

_“I was hoping that the knight and the dragon would make friends,” He said, bouncing. “Oh, and the prince too! That way they would all be happy.”_

_“I swear, your head is full of sugar.”_

_Sora grinned. “A little bit of sweetness never hurt anybody.”_

_\---_

Maleficent was amused by the young changeling’s expression, the pure determination, the anger on his face as he tried to run after her through the halls of the living castle.

Foolish boy that he was, he seemed not to realize that she was not where she appeared to be. Reflections and apparitions. Nothing more, nothing less.

“I thought I’d told you to get out of here!” The boy yelled, snapping his fangs with a deep growl. “I don’t want _anything_ to do with whatever murder plot you have against Sora. In fact, I’ll do anything in my power to stop you now that I know!”

He shouldn’t have chased her into the crystal cavern, she thought. His silly little human plaything that he called a sword wouldn’t be able to hurt her, regardless of his futile swings against the glowing purple and blue rocks that bore her image. Mirrors were unlucky to keep uncovered. In this place, she had as many mirrors as she’d ever need.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to judge, little one. You’re only hurting yourself with these silly restrictions.”

The boy snarled, hand unconsciously going to cover his chest. It wasn’t rising and falling nearly as much as it should.

Bound by his own lack of imagination, Maleficent neither envied nor pitied the pathetic child. Riku was being insolent by refusing her gifts. His true potential, a winged beast of unimaginable horror, wasn’t made to be hidden like a flaw. Those wings were supposed to be fearsome sights to anything smart enough to experience fear.

“So what? The faster it kills me, the better.” He retorted. The blade that he carried collided heavily with a huge crystal stalactite, causing it to drop and shatter into pieces all over the ground. A swift kick sent the majority of the pieces careening into a bottomless pit, of which there were many in this part of the castle, and he grunted as though it had actually done something to ward her away.

She appeared on the wall of sapphires, taunting him into coming forward. Riku followed. It was too easy, really, to coax him into the deeper darkness, simply relying on his one-track mind to keep him from noticing where they were going.

What a stupid little creation. He was physically perfect, as her work always was, but she loathed how the humans had managed to turn him into such an idiot, incapable of killing just for the fun of it. How contemptable. 

Killing was the most basic of instincts for a changeling to possess. They were born and bred for assassination, able to take the hatred that surrounded their species and turn it into a virtue of blood and delicious revenge. Maleficent knew how he was supposed to be growing, and he was far too human, not enough hatred in his veins for him to mature into a proper killer. People hadn’t spit upon him as the humans so often did to the fae. They didn’t hate him, and so he had no one to hate except for himself.

Hatred of the self served no purpose. It was _weak._ And no creature of her making would be weak on her watch.

At least he was still built like a proper changeling, she supposed, watching him kick a pillar of quartz into oblivion in one effective hit.

The nightmares that she had sent to him seemed to have no effect on his physical skill, as though he’d barely slept in weeks, Riku was able to keep up with her magical decoys with strength unparalleled. He kept slashing at them, destroying the caves as he moved through them, shattering every place where he saw Maleficent’s shadow until he was surrounded by destruction, and then he’d move on. Deeper and deeper into the dark they went.

“You can’t keep your true nature hidden forever. One day, my magic will take effect. It’ll overwhelm you. _Empower_ you.” She said with a smile. “Sora will die by your hand whether you like it or not.”

She could tell that the thought unsettled him. His darkness bristled unpleasantly, betraying how much he was afraid of such a thing coming to pass.

“I could never kill him,” Riku insisted, forgoing his sword to punch the amethyst chunk that she appeared in next. “Magic or no magic. I would kill myself first.”

Laughing, Maleficent sent a rumble through the caverns, just to make him squirm. “It’s not that simple, child. Monsters don’t die until they’ve fulfilled their purpose. You would only succeed in self-mutilation. We can’t have that.”

The changeling was panting for breath, finally feeling the effects of his limited oxygen supply with the bandages covering his form. It was only a matter of time now until he’d be right where Maleficent wanted him. She smiled as he kept trying to follow her, always ready to strike, never in the right place to do any actual damage.

“Doesn’t it excite you? The thought of being able to utilize your darkness’ full potential? The enticing promise of the prince screaming for you to stop as you aim for the kill? His tears, his blood, his dying breath, all yours?”

At last, she seemed to break through his anger, garnering a delightful look of genuine disgust. He looked like he was going to be sick again.

“A little green in the face, dearie?” She joked. “Don’t worry. It won’t feel like that once the change takes place.”

An ear-splitting noise sounded as he cut through a whole room of her crystal decoys, the delicate rocks splintering like wood under his blade. His footsteps sounded almost like her own when he crunched the rocks to dust beneath his feet.

“You’re _sick.”_

She laughed. “I never claimed to the contrary!”

How easy it was to make someone hate. She was doing it right now, getting him worked up, watching his blood boil every time she mentioned the little human boy that he’d grown so attached to. All she needed to do was cultivate his hatred in her, and her concerns would be through.

“Sora hasn’t even done anything to you!” Riku shouted at a disproportionally large image of her inlaid on the ceiling of diamonds. “What reason could you possibly have to want him dead?”

Her apparition arched an eyebrow at him, fully aware that her answer would only make him angrier. That was the goal.

“You’re an imbecile if you haven’t yet learned of the reasoning behind a coup d’état.”

That seemed to strike a nerve with the boy. He thrusted his sword through the place where her heart would be and cracked the diamond structure into shards, face dark and enraged. “I don’t care about your bullshit faerie politics. Any soldier worth their salt could’ve told me that that killing the human prince would be advantageous for your court.” Tucking his silver hair behind his ear, he rearranged himself into an offensive stance. “It’s the ethics I don’t understand. Sora— he’s _innocent._ ”

The place where her true body resided was not much farther now. She frowned at his sudden bout of calm, seeing how the anger that had risen in him was quieting down into cold calculation instead, his hesitance fading to the back of his mind. Slowing the chase, Riku stopped to close his eyes.

When they opened, they were focused and steady in a way that they hadn’t been just moments before.

“He’s a beacon of light, and has the kindest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.” Riku said faintly, a small change in expression making his features look softer than they really were. Riku followed to her last decoy, the one in the thin rocky shaft of emeralds that lead up to where she waited. He expertly destroyed it into a rain of green that piled around his feet.

For a small spell, the changeling seemed to become lost in his thoughts. The softness disappeared from his face, and he became cold again, staring up at where he knew the real Maleficent resided.

“Sora doesn’t deserve to die. Somehow, some way, I’ll find a way to make sure that he doesn’t, whatever you do to me for it.”

He ducked down to brush his hands through the emerald dust.

“I don’t have to do anything,” She said, happy that her plan was going spectacularly well. “My power is enough that I don’t need to. I could tell you my every weakness, and it would do nothing, so by all means, young changeling, come and find me.”

Green flames erupted from the walls of the shaft, creating a cylinder of burning heat that Riku’s darkness form would be unable to travel through even if he could muster up the strength to dissolve. He cussed under his breath.

“If you can pass this obstacle, I’ll tell you anything you wish to know.”

\---

Sora had known that this was going to be a very long night for him since long before it actually happened, yet, he was still unprepared to be where he was, staring at the little embroidered stars on the canopy above his bed like they would rearrange into a message that would tell him what to think about all this.

Being lonely was just plain horrible, he thought to himself. It was horrible in all the most subtle and torturous of ways.

It wasn’t fair of him to feel like this when there were so many other problems that took precedence over it. Wanting a hug, a casual touch, anything of the like, was such a minor issue in the grand scheme of everything, especially when he was surrounded by people like his parents, or Riku, who was a literal _knight._ His whole job was more important and more taxing than anything Sora could imagine.

As predicted, his body didn’t care very much, practically vibrating with the need to be touched _one_ more time, like he had only a day ago. The pleasant high had already worn off. Like a bloodhound, once he’d gotten a taste of his target, all he could think about was more. More of his Dad playfully ruffling his hair, more of Ventus’ gentle hand on his shoulder, more of Vanitas’ painful (but very appreciated) jabs to his side, and _more,_ oh so much more of Riku’s strong and capable hands gripping his own.

Did it really matter that it’d been for ceremony’s sake, in Riku’s case? His chest certainly didn’t seem to think so, filling up with warmth as if someone had poured tea right from his stomach all the way up to his neck. He’d felt like he was melting until the whole ordeal was over, and afterwards had been on cloud nine for the rest of the day.

It was rare for Riku to touch him without it becoming an ordeal of flinches and apologies and weirdly warm and icy-cold feelings intermingling inside.

Sora huffed and rolled off his back.

Well, whatever. There was nothing he could do about the situation unless he was willing to make Riku uncomfortable, and that was something he couldn’t bring himself to do on purpose. He’d have to settle for petting Goofy for now.

The old dog always seemed sympathetic to him when he was like this. Laying on the bed, he let Sora run his fingers through the soft black fur until the constant buzzing under his skin would die down a little bit.

Donald didn’t subscribe to that kind of affection, though he would quack softly and fluff his feathers, the closest thing that he could get to the human way of expressing begrudging companionship. It made Sora smile. The attitude reminded him of Riku when he’d been overworked at practice.

He allowed himself to fall into his thoughts for a long while.

…A horrible decision, really.

Once the daydreams of soft embraces and gentle touches became too painful to bear, Sora climbed out of bed, pulling the blue curtains aside carelessly. Sleep wouldn’t be coming for him tonight. So, he might as well keep himself occupied in some other way.

The best thing that he’d ever been able to do to quell his overactive thoughts in the past was paint out his feelings, on any empty space he could find, which he felt was pretty obvious based on the chaotic mess of colors and paintings scattered all over the room.

Sora found the motions to be calming. Next to his bed was a small wooden box that always smelled like the rosy wax that’d been used to polish it, filled with various paints that he’d either received from his parents over the years or that Riku’d nicked for him when he had the time. He grinned as he opened it up. Already, his hands were smudged with all colors from the inside.

Since Riku’d said he was going to be visiting his brother for the evening, Sora wasn’t worried about the light or the noise disturbing him. All Sora had to do to light up the room was send out a pulse of magic. Answering happily, the castle produced several glowing crystals for him to see by.

He pulled out a thin paintbrush from the bottom of the box. Ignoring Donald’s quacks of annoyance at the activity, Sora dipped it in the first jar of paint that he had, and began to sketch out the vague details of his most recent dream.

A great big dragon, crouched at the top of a hill, with a cloud of frost spilling from its mouth.

Riku would probably complain that there was no more room on his walls, ceiling, or floor for this stuff, but Sora disagreed. He usually just painted on top of whatever he decided was old or bad enough to sacrifice. Besides, something was telling him that this painting was going to be better than any he’d done so far.

The cold gripping his heart lessened the more that he worked. It was hard to think of how painfully empty the room felt while he was trying to decide which shades of white and blue would most effectively depict the silver that he was trying to put on the dragon’s body, or which shades of blue and green would create the best teal.

He saw it soon enough. The glistening, intelligent eyes that seemed to shift between colors every few minutes. Sora swirled his brush around the iris, trying to emphasize how much wisdom and power he saw when he looked into them. It was a good thing that his dreams had always been so vivid. Recalling the way that the sunlight glinted from them took no effort, second nature to his hands.

Sora spent a moment admiring his work, when he suddenly heard a voice speaking to him.

_I would be careful around dragons, if I were you._ It said. _You wouldn’t want one to find you and decide it wants to take your heart._

He looked around him, feeling the urge to dart for Kingdom Key over by the closet. There weren’t supposed to be voices in his room when Riku wasn’t here. Unless it was Vanitas, he guessed, except it hadn’t sounded anything like cousin Vani.

All he had was his paintbrush. He gripped it like a knife, staring through the blue glow of the crystals that he’d summoned into the darkness beyond.

The voice laughed. _Of course, you’ve always been known to have strange tastes, little prince. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind the hungry touch of a monster._

Nothing seemed to come of it. He stayed poised over his painting, glaring for the invisible intruder for several long minutes. When nothing happened, he uneasily went to dip his brush in the pigment again, the gasped as he looked down at the dragon.

It wasn’t looking down the hill anymore, its eyes fixated directly on Sora’s.

He took his paintbrush away from it hurriedly. Painting over a sentient drawing didn’t sound like a particularly good idea.

Sora glanced to the left and the right, then looked back at the painting. He pointed to himself, arching an eyebrow to ask the pretty stupid question, even in his own opinion, of _who, me?_

_It matters not who you think I speak to, as long as you listen._

The voice wasn’t spoken aloud so much as it was a quiet suggestion at the back of Sora’s mind. It was too sure and too unfamiliar to be his own thoughts, and he knew that his imagination, as vast as it was, wouldn’t have come up with a sentence like that.

_I would advise you to quit this path before you walk it._ His dragon painting continued, nonsensically. _Humans so rarely survive the pain that comes from craving the attention of one that they can never have…_

The dragon flapped its wings, sprouting the cloud of ice that Sora hadn’t yet painted.

_Not without a lot of work at least. Ice dragons like myself tend to be quite stubborn about denying ourselves of happiness, even before we’ve learned of life’s hardships. The one that you know is so young- under a century- that I doubt he would notice anything past the tip of his snout for a good forty years._

Sora blinked.

He had absolutely no clue what the dragon was talking about, but when one appears to a human of all creatures, it was only common knowledge to pay attention. He nodded to indicate that he understood, though he was far from it.

_You have two options from here._ It said, not harshly, nor in a very comforting tone. _You can either risk your heart by presenting it to the beast, and possibly receive death… or reward beyond your most self-indulgent dreams._

The dragon made a clicking sound in its throat, then, without warning, spewed a stream of blue painted flame across Sora’s floor.

_Or when you realize how you burn, you can cast it to ashes, like how the changeling has tried to do so many times. Both of you will fall apart alone, and the changeling will likely be killed gruesomely— but you will be safe for the rest of your days._

Sora gripped the cold metal of his necklace on pure instinct. Despite what the dragon was insinuating, he didn’t actually know any changelings, or dragons for that matter. He would like to know one, maybe, although from the words that he was hearing, perhaps it would be reckless of him to think so.

He didn’t like the insinuation that he might be responsible for one’s death. Whether or not he knew the individual in question, it shouldn’t be killed for whatever he was doing.

As if it heard him, the dragon shifted from foot to foot, reminiscent of how Donald would when he was amused by something that Sora’d done. It blew another soft cloud of ice. _The choice is both yours and his to make. I hope for your sake, little prince, that your choices are made wisely._

And then it spread its wings. Flying from the floor to the wall, it disappeared into the cave of the icy mountain that he’d painted years ago, leaving only a claw mark underneath as proof of its existence.

Sora put away his paint set with slightly shaky arms. He’d deal with the daydreams instead.

\---

Green fire burned the same way that the normal kind did, apparently, which he lamented as he poured his last potion over the burnt red of his palms.

It hadn’t been the smartest idea to try climbing the wall.

In his defense, he was pretty damn irritated by the faerie woman’s actions, and more than just a little bit disturbed that she’d described her aspirations of killing Sora in such a passionate way. His protective instinct made him want to slit her throat for having such weird fantasies about a boy who hadn’t done anything to garner the attention of the magical realms, and some part of him wondered if imagining bloody killing was what she did for fun, as much as he didn’t want to think about her pastimes any more than he had to at this point.

For all of his shortcomings, at least Riku could say that he wasn’t that much of a creep. No thank you. His completely nonexistent and hypothetical fantasies involving Sora were much less murdery, the most incriminating thing about them being that they were… uh… disgustingly sappy.

Ears tinging pink, Riku stuffed the empty bottle into his satchel and tried to wrangle his brain back onto a track that would be useful for figuring this thing out.

The trap didn’t appear to be too complicated now that he wasn’t trying to claw the faerie’s eyes out, almost as if she wanted him to get up there to find her. Had he been more of a cautious person, Riku would’ve turned around right then and there, going back to his room for the evening to stretch out his wings for a while.

He knew he would regret not doing so in the morning. Even now, they ached like they were about to simply disintegrate into nothing. Riku ignored them and started to look through his inventory for something of use. Since his gloves had been burned to nothing when he was scratching at the unstable burning surface of the wall, he was now down one potential material.

Just empty potions and a length of rope remained.

Great. Alright.

His next two ideas were about as useful as the first one, the makeshift grappling hook that he constructed out of the rope and some amethyst pieces that he picked up from the previous room breaking as soon as he’d tested its ability to hold his weight. The plan to run up the wall using his magic as anchor points didn’t do much either. His metal-tipped boots had only started to glow dangerously red, threatening to melt underneath him if he continued up.

It wasn’t until he tripped over his failed grappling hook and stumbled directly _into_ the wall that he’d actually realized what the woman intended by setting the trap for him. He gritted his teeth, snarling out an insult that even Vanitas would wash out his mouth with soap for.

The fire caught onto his shirt, and as he ripped it off of him, the fabric charred and shriveled to a husk. He’d forgotten about his bandages, though, and yelped when the flames were suddenly licking at his back. “Ow, ow!” Riku barked, automatically shifting his wings to shield the damage once the bandages had been destroyed. The wings stifled the remaining fire on whatever was left of them. He sighed in relief, then had to resist the compelling urge to punch the wall.

She’d been trying to get him to fly up. And it looked like she’d won.

Though he’d been saddled with wings for a little over a week now, he hadn’t really experimented much with using them for their intended purpose. Not necessarily that he was averse to trying… he figured that having wings that he knew how to control would be less dangerous than having some that he didn’t.

He simply hadn’t had the time. During the daytime, he had to keep them hidden, and at night, he was mostly preoccupied with fending off Sora’s mother-henning over what he thought were still his back wounds for long enough to stretch them out. Then there was the fact that he had to stay carefully leaning against the door so as to keep it shut, in case Sora tried to knock out yet another one in the name of helping out.

What he really hated wasn’t exactly that he was being given an opportunity to try them out, rather, it was that the opportunity was given by his currently least favorite person in the world aside from himself.

That was a tough title to claim. If she worked hard enough, she may even be able to beat him for the number one spot by the end of the day.

With that, Riku grumbled to himself, moving his unbelievably sore wings into what he was pretty sure was a proper position for flight. He winced a few times at the protest of his spine and ribcage, but dues were dues. There was work to be done that couldn’t be postponed because he was too much of a wuss to handle pain.

He manipulated the weird new muscles to bring the wings down quickly, lifting off the ground.

_Way_ too effectively.

Riku crashed headfirst into the ceiling, slamming his head so hard against the rock that he saw stars, then he and his whole body went plummeting back down to the bottom. The bare skin of his torso did not appreciate being dragged over the gritty stone floor before he’d come to a stop.

“Ugh… fucking _stars_ that hurts…” He groaned.

The second attempt went a lot smoother as far as second attempts could go, allowing him to rocket into the air just shy of repeating the first one so that he could glide slowly down to the floor outside the rock shaft of crackling fire.

As soon as he landed, he went to tuck his wings back into his bandages by habit, but remembered that they’d been burnt, and cursed his luck. He hated looking at his wings, hated _feeling_ them attached to his back. At least the pain of his wrappings usually disguised the unfamiliar heaviness enough that he didn’t have to think of them anymore.

The faerie woman was waiting for him when he looked up, sitting on a throne of glimmering obsidian.

“Congratulations, Riku!” She singsonged, gesturing at him with her staff. “Your first flight, the most pivotal moment of any changeling’s lifetime. I’m so proud of you.”

He would flip her off if he had the energy to. As it stood, he was barely able to brace himself on his knees, the muscle and bone of his back and wings deciding to express to him in detail just how much effort it took to get a creature of his weight suspended in air.

She continued, stamping her staff against the ground once. “Bravo, bravo.”

His hands came off of his knees to reach for his belt, where Soul Eater and King’s Defender were both sheathed right next to each other. He was going to run one of them right through her neck and be through with it.

The woman seemed unperturbed by the threat. She noticed how tired he was, knowing that even if he did manage to pull his swords free, he wouldn’t be able to put enough force behind a blow to hurt her.

“Ah, well, while this family bonding moment was absolutely touching,” the woman chuckled, leaning in a way that almost made her black robes and horns disappear in the obsidian furnishing. “I really will need to be going soon. So put your best listening ears on.”

Dropping his arm slack, Riku turned his head away.

“You better have answers.” He demanded, lips peeling back over his fangs involuntarily.

She grinned coolly. “Better than answers, boy. I have a little bit of a, let’s say, prophecy for you. A prediction. I think you’re going to like it.”

Green fire flickered to life beneath his feet, keeping him locked in place as she stood up to move across the room. Riku despaired at the impending loss of his shoes, too, which would leave only a few more articles of clothing remaining on his person. He could already hear Ventus complaining that he’d only just made Riku new ones.

The faerie was standing in front of the pit of flames now. She turned to face him, lifting up her arms in a dramatic showcase of her fire magic.

“Two years from now, the kings are going to grant you permission to take the prince to their old home kingdom of Hallow Bastion, as a treat for his fourteenth birthday…” She said, eyes fixating on his. “The castle contains a room at the very top that is home to the dragon known as The Oracle. She will teach you of your destiny, perhaps even including useful information on me, which I just know you’re _dying_ to hear.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Riku asked, very much wishing that his newfound freedom from the bandages had granted him the ability to breathe again instead of the feeling of being vulnerable. “There is literally nothing for you to gain by giving me intel.”

Her laughter echoed through the crystal caverns as the fire consumed her, and she was gone, leaving only the burning green in her wake.

“Because it’s fun to be challenged for once, don’t you think?”

\---

“Hey Sora, you awake?”

“Uh, yeah,” The prince responded, flicking his bleary eyes from the starry canopy to the doors of the living castle, where he’d heard Riku’s voice coming from. “What’s wrong?”

Riku was perfectly capable of opening the doors himself. He’d done it so many times that surely, by now, the castle would even open them automatically for him if he was having trouble with the magic lock.

“Keep your eyes closed for a second while I pass through.” Riku commanded politely.

It wasn’t phrased like a question, so Sora sat up to blink himself into a more properly awake state. Riku didn’t often give him direct commands unless they were acting together in battle. Was he hurt? Being followed? He didn’t know, but he was a little nervous to find out.

Sora shook his head, trying to rid himself of all the steadily worsening ideas of what could’ve possibly happened in between visiting Ventus for the night and going through the castle, six of which included him losing an arm or a leg. His big imagination loved to mess with him when it mattered the most. “Why?”

“Castle burnt my clothes off.” Riku muttered sheepishly.

Suddenly, Sora’s cheeks flooded with a brilliant, burning red.

Did he hear that correctly? No. Couldn’t have.

“W-What?”

“Castle burnt my clothes off,” Riku repeated, louder this time. “So for the sake of decency, I’m asking you to avert your eyes.”

Sora had no trouble finding his bed canopy interesting after that, fixating so hard on it that he was trembling as he heard Riku pass quietly through the room, idly telling him good night. He said it weakly back, unsure why his voice took two or three tries to work.

Riku was just glad that he didn’t have to lie this time to get Sora not to see his wings.

And Sora? He had to bury his horribly red face into his pillow as his brain unhelpfully supplied him with the mental image of Riku’s bare biceps for the rest of the evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: come on. burn off his clothes. it'd be funny  
> me to me: no dude there's always going to be that one person who's gonna make it into a weird sex thing  
> me: but it'd be rlly funny come on i promise
> 
> that being said, please don't read that last part as a sex thing... I just thought it'd be a funny and kinda cute way to end the chapter


	15. Just Once and Never Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bring to you... the ins and outs of magical puberty, pain, yearning (tm), and as always, some fucking dragons, because I'm asexual and by the Goddess I NEED to include dragons in everything I write. Please enjoy. I beg of you. All of my slutiness that was supposed to go to sex was accidentally converted into validation slutiness when I was born. 
> 
> Anyhowseph, thank you to everyone who leaves comments and kudos (due to the aforementioned reason)! I literally live on comments. they Keep Me Going dude. <3

Being a growing changeling was hard.

Being a _teenager_ was hard.

Not to paraphrase the most embarrassing two-minute conversation that he’d ever had with Ventus to date, but dealing with a constantly changing body and a flare of new emotions that he’d never felt before was indeed an overall _challenging experience_. In other words, incredibly, undeniably, very hard.

He definitely hadn’t been prepared, in spite of his attempts to educate himself, to suddenly shoot up about three more inches overnight until he was hitting his head on doorways and finding himself too tall for his old armor sets, or to gain so much visible muscle all over his arms and legs that he couldn’t fit into the clothes that Ven had made for his twelfth birthday anymore. Aqua and Ven had both laughed it off and reminded him that “he was fifteen now” and “should’ve been expecting it”. How could he, if no one had ever explained exactly how any of this was supposed to work in the first place? Books only offered enough insight to know that he was going to grow, not any of the gritty details involving how fast it happened or how he suddenly would be unable to recognize himself in the mirror if he took too long between weeks to check. 

Novels and diagrams couldn’t have helped him very far anyway. He had no clue how much of the textbooks applied to him as a changeling, or as one with a human form, so about half of the things that he’d expected to happen didn’t, and the rest of the things that he’d dismissed as irrelevant did. It was always the worst of both that showed up when he was most dreading it…

Riku didn’t end up with spikes on his back. He _did_ suddenly have his voice squeak and crack at the most awkward and inconvenient moments, which was one of the most unfair trades that he’d ever heard of. Normal changelings didn’t have to humiliate themselves like this when they reached adolescence, and normal humans didn’t need to check their body for scales, fucking _scales_ , on a regular basis. Riku didn’t seem to have developed any except on his wings, but it was the principle of straining to see his himself in the mirror with his giant leather lizard-kites smacking him in the face whenever he got past a certain angle that made him want to jump into the ocean and die from how stupid it was.

The only good thing that came of it was that the voice cracks ceased around the time he hit fourteen and a half, leaving his originally mid-tone voice to become deep and even, smoother than it had been before. Sora seemed to be on a similar track from what he could tell, though his wasn’t quite as low as Riku’s by the time his cracks began to slow.

He really wished that he’d known more about this kind of thing before it happened. No one had ever bothered to mention to him that his voice would one day _drop_ for no reason. He didn’t know what to think about it, whispering to himself just to hear it resonate through his chest like the echoes off a cavern wall. It sounded like a true and proper dragon child, low enough to indicate power but with enough range of inflection to be good for dramatics.

Like he needed any more of those.

As for his less-human changes, his wings grew to be big and imposing over his form whenever he could catch sight of them in the mirror, and his fangs lengthened, sharpened to a considerably more deadly point than they had been when he was a child. They caused him to bleed whenever they caught on his lip; an unfortunately frequent occurrence. These were the things that he was arguably the most tired of fighting. His body never gave a single damn that he hated himself to a greater degree every time that his wings got that tiny bit bigger and stronger, that it was more painful to breathe every day that he had to pull his wraps one more layer around him to properly keep them down. Long since having given up on decent sleep, Riku was tired of feeling like he was dying when he was awake too, and he didn’t appreciate the pain for as much as he could bear it.

The last and worst changes to come, in his opinion, were the ones that up and decided to turn him into a lunatic.

Whichever part of him the emotional changes came from, he wasn’t entirely sure, but nevertheless, they _also_ happened, running anger and pride and fear and this overwhelming protectiveness through his veins like lead poisoning, near making him explode every time he so much as saw someone put their hand on the shoulder of a person he cared about.

He almost considered tying his hands together permanently after he met the Grand Weaponsmith for the first time. All he’d really wanted to do was see the new sword Aqua was commissioning from the armory together, he hadn’t intended to go feral like a dog— he just felt so weirdly angry when Terra went to hug her that he had Soul Eater to the man’s throat in the space between heartbeats. It was the source of much embarrassment from him, since he came to admire the man quite a bit once he managed to calm down and strike up a chat, and no matter how much Terra tried to insist that it was fine, Riku couldn’t stop feeling like he wanted to slam his head through a brick wall for being more of an impulsive dunce than his best friend.

“Impulsive Dunce” was less of an insult to Sora, whose stupidity was little more than endearing, and much more of an insult to himself. At least Sora was handling his coming of age pretty well all things considered, unlike Riku, who was getting sliced open on every jagged edge that life had to offer. Especially when it came to his most human trait. He had no clue if or how Sora was handling the torture that was his brain attempting to dope him up on lethal doses of oxytocin whenever the object of his affection smiled, but if it was close to half as bad as Riku, then he sincerely gave his condolences.

Riku could only theorize (based on the limited books on changeling anatomy that he could find in the castle’s library, most of which were insultingly barbaric about how they spoke of his kind) that his compulsion to defend was even worse than it normally was when he was around Sora because of his, for lack of more sophisticated words, affliction of unnecessary and unwanted emotions.

If someone came within twelve feet of the ever-sunny and shining prince, Riku physically had to hold himself down from tackling them to the floor and demanding to know what they were doing. Standing near Sora turned him into a veritable one-man army. While useful for keeping him safe, it was very unhelpful when he was mainly receiving those urges from watching him play with his pets, seeing his hair get ruffled by the kings, or watching some other harmless thing of equal caliber happen when hanging around with Ventus and Vanitas.

It was ridiculous to feel defensive and jealous around literal _animals_ by fault of his raging hormones. However much of an asshole Donald had always been to him, he knew it was unreasonable to want to choke the thing just for accepting head pats.

Then again, the traitorous part of his brain that held such hormones would always reason, it was pretty easy to feel left out when he saw how affectionate Sora was with his new cat, this big, fat thing that he’d named Meow-Wow, watching how gently he ran his hands through the creature’s fur. Riku couldn’t help imagining the same thing on his own skin, or in his hair, and when he did, he got lost in the imagined bliss to the point that he’d begin purring. _Purring._

_Why don’t I get petted like that?_ Riku would think angrily, right up until the moment he’d realize what he just thought and excuse himself to go scream at the bottom of some flaming ditch in the living castle.

Did he mention that being a changeling was awful?

Gods, he hated being a teenager. He hated it so fucking much.

It was so frustrating to navigate all this stuff by himself. Sure, Ven had certainly seemed to want to talk to him about it, but their brief conversation that Riku’d shut down very quickly was not enlightening so much as it was mortifying, easily turning his stomach over in knots whenever he remembered it. That was _not_ what he’d wanted when he came to Ven for advice. What had wanted was some validation, or he didn’t know, maybe some sympathy, for how godsdamned horrible it was to have feelings for the one person who should never ever want him, for the _one_ person whom he was fated to kill.

He knew it was unrealistic to expect that much from Ventus. Sometimes it got a little tiring to give all the brotherly pep talks to himself, though.

Debating the semantics of his own feelings got to be boring at times, or close to heartbreaking when he had enough time to throw his ideas back and forth. How was he supposed to advise himself about this? He was the idiot who needed advising _._ The clearest sentiment that he could work out was that he probably _could_ try to get closer to Sora…

Catching Sora’s attention likely wouldn’t be impossible, if he really put himself into it, already having a pretty large monopoly on the prince’s time, and already knowing just about everything there was to know about him. Stars knew that he’d already put way too much thought into how he’d get Sora swooning, into exactly where he would place his hands and lips to most effectively render him speechless.

The problem was that he was the only person who could never have that. It was too risky. Even if he did manage to get somewhere, it’d be dangerous for Sora to get close to him before Riku could figure out the details of the prophecy that they were both subject to.

And besides, there was nothing about him that Sora could love. He had wings! _Fangs!!_ He had all the powers and instincts of a dragon, all the trickery and cunning of a faerie. Riku was no match for the sweet innocence of Sora’s sky-blue eyes and laughter like a balm for any wound, no matter how his heart protested.

That was what brought him around to the thing he hated most of all about being this age, honestly— that for the first time since he’d started feeling all this gooey nonsense for Sora, he actually _wanted_ to take that risk in spite of the consequences, and that was what made it so much harder to keep the urge suppressed. Riku had to put a lot more work into keeping his feelings small and unnoticeable for the sake of keeping his liege safe.

It was just so, so, difficult now. Way more than it ever had been in previous years, both due to his rapidly eroding self-control and due to Sora, whose every smile compiled on the poor beaten husk of his heart until all he could think about was sweeping him off his feet and making sure he smiled like that forever. 

He could hardly be blamed for feeling the way that he did, not when Sora painted on little multicolored stars between his freckles when he was bored, not when he had constantly messy hair that was so cute and smelled like his cinnamon soap, and his gaze was so hypnotizingly beautiful, and his skin looked so soft and warm that Riku’s mouth started to water a little whenever he caught sight of him changing his shirt, the desire to kiss Sora’s exposed shoulders damn near making him lose his mind…

Riku slapped his cheeks to pull himself out of that thought before it could get too far.

Being a teenager was absolute bullshit, Riku concluded, flapping his wings a few times in the darkness of night so he wouldn’t fall from where he was crouched on the railing. The stars showed no sign of feeling remorseful.

\---

Vanitas and Ventus were used to working as pair after so many years, considering how often the captain would call his second-youngest subordinate to perform needlessly complicated and menial tasks simply because he could.

They’d gotten used to laboring shoulder to shoulder on various problems. Lifting, fixing, locking, unlocking, moving, or otherwise completing whatever it was Vanitas had come up with this time was just one of the ways that Ventus spent his time now, and he found that it came rather in handy when he was asked by the kings to help set up the rigging of their ship.

The two of them weaved back and forth on the docks as they got everything assembled for the trip. The ship wasn’t very large in comparison to the giant barques that most sea-bordering countries would commission, but it had a relatively roomy deck, decently well-furnished cabins underneath, and a pretty good galley in Ventus’ opinion. Any time that he wouldn’t be using a kitchen made it infinitely better than it had been before. He still didn’t quite appreciate the barrels of ingredients and drinking water that he had to stock them with, though how could he _really_ be expected to, when the person he was working next to was the biggest drama queen on the planet.

Hey, just because he was used to (even very good friends with) Vanitas did not mean that he endorsed the man’s incredible ability to be a dick about everything.

“I can’t believe I’m finally getting rid of you little shits,” Vanitas cheered, hauling another barrel onto his shoulders. “It’s been almost fourteen fucking years since I’ve had any semblance of peace around here.”

“What?” Sora cried, insulted.

Ven thought he’d been asleep from where he was laying back on the sand. Apparently not, as he shrugged the sand off his jacket, climbed up to his feet, and trailed behind Vanitas bearing the deadly force of his pout, refuting the captain’s claim with the helpful information that Vanitas hadn’t done a damn thing to raise him.

Nearby, Riku was carrying an entire wrapped sail by himself, not participating in the argument, although he nodded every now and again in agreement. It wasn’t perfectly clear which side he was on. He seemed to be playing the safe route, changing who he nodded to depending on which one of the cousins was looking at him.

“Get back to work, Vani. We have to get this ready by tomorrow.”

He laughed. “Yeah, yeah. I’m putting my whole back into this shit! You guys are finally leaving me the fuck alone!”

Riku then gave in and picked a definitive side, “accidentally” wiping him off the dock by turning a few inches to the right. The sail he carried was so large that the tiny shift was all he needed to catch Vanitas right in the gut and knock him into the water.

They ignored Vanitas’ screeching from under the surface and continued stocking up the ship as Sora doubled over laughing. Ventus was giggling just a little bit himself, but he tried not to do it too loud, knowing that he’d be sleeping on the floor tonight if Vanitas were to hear him.

Over the noise of splashing and crying seagulls and the prince having an absolute ball watching Vanitas pretend he was capable of being drowned, Riku could be heard muttering to himself about being the only one around here who was bothering to get any actual work done. Though he wanted to argue, Ven couldn’t exactly boast that the one or _maybe_ two barrels he could handle at once was anything close to Riku’s insane ability to carry six barrels at the same time, and he did have to admit that fixing and reinstalling the ship’s mast all on his own was far greater of a task than Ventus’ assigned roll of counting the rations for the voyage. He stuck out his tongue at Riku anyway.

Harsh sunlight beat down onto the brothers as Ven picked up his load to follow behind. It was tempting to stay behind and laugh at Vanitas’ misery for a while, but he didn’t want to spend much longer slacking off, lest Riku get sick of it and kick him off the edge of the ship.

A grunt from Riku and the groaning of old wood indicated that he’d started heaving himself and the sail up the new mast. Down at the dock, Vanitas whined and hauled his body up to the space by Sora’s feet, shivering like a sopping puppy to garner sympathy points.

“Venty-Wenty, I’ve got seawater in my fucking lungs,” He complained. Ven rolled his eyes. “I need healing magic or I’m gonna- _hack-_ choke to death.”

“Then die.”

Ven marched up the plank to the deck of the ship. He craned his neck up to see Riku crouched precariously on the wooden beam that he was attaching the sail to, barely visible from the intense backlighting of the sun.

Riku’s arms were tying up ropes and cords so quickly that he was reduced to a blur of blue and swatches of stark-white skin against the deep brown of the wood. He was every bit a soldier in how he moved, strong and imposing, and very, very set on his task, as though it was an inevitability that his work would get done, and that the only thing between himself and his goal was time. The only pause he took was to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the black leather of his armguard, holding the rope he was tying to hold up the sail in a hard grip in his other hand. Riku tugged a little at the collar of his cloak (an absolutely insane wardrobe choice given the heat, and even weirder considering Riku’s hatred of such) and flitted his eyes to where Ventus was setting his barrel down by the cabin door to fiddle with the lock.

Ven caught the key that Riku chucked at him a moment later. Its metal was still warm from Riku’s hand when he inserted it into the mechanism and swung the door open.

The next few hours of grueling physical labor were tough on Ventus’ lower back, all the lifting getting to him after he finally finished loading up all the barrels and counting their contents about a thousand times over. Vanitas stopped moping and helped just a little bit, and even Sora joined in at some point to lend a hand, but all three of them combined were nothing compared to Riku’s vigilance in his work. Riku’d managed to set up every single sail on the ship without any help at all. After he finished with that, he checked the furnishings in all the cabins below, made the beds, fixed several boards in the hull, and spent the brief break that Ventus proposed polishing and sharpening his swords instead of relaxing.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Ventus and Vanitas munched on some of the grilled fish that Sora’d cooked up for lunch and watched with mild interest as he kept trying to bug Riku into eating it. Riku refused to lose his patience beyond letting on that he was annoyed.

His arm didn’t cease its back and forth motions as he carefully brushed over the edge of Soul Eater, trying not to dull the newly-sharpened point, and he grumbled every time that the prince poked his side like he was barely holding himself back from chucking something across the deck. Sora laughed it off, though Ven could tell that the prince was bothered that Riku still wouldn’t eat.

He’d be lying if he said that the worry was unfounded, he concurred, as he looked his little brother up and down and absentmindedly swatted Vanitas’ arm.

There was enough muscle on his brother’s bones to not make it very obvious that he was… well, kind of thin. He was so strong and so tall for his age that nobody would really think about it unless they knew him well, assuming that it was only a result of his training slimming him down, or of natural fat distribution.

Ven wasn’t stupid, and neither were Vanitas and Sora. They all exchanged glances of varying concern as they noticed one by one small details out of place. The dark smudges under Riku’s eyes, the shortness of his breath, the unwillingness to rest, the unnatural straightness to his spine even when Vanitas wasn’t requiring him to be on form. Something wasn’t right.

None of them were sure that they wanted to bring it up.

_Maybe he didn’t sleep well last night,_ Ventus thought, ignoring Vanitas’ hand sneaking over to steal some of his fish. 

Sora was the only one of the group who was really acknowledging his worry, trying his absolute hardest to spark some kind of competitive spirit to trick him into doing _something,_ be that sleeping, eating, or taking off that damn cloak that Ven was pretty sure was causing him heat stroke. Whenever it looked like he was about to rise to the bait, he would make solid eye contact with the prince, then deflate all at once, going silently back to his polishing. The blade was spotless.

“I’ve had enough of sitting around,” Riku said, sliding his sword into its sheath loudly. “I’m gonna swab the deck now.”

There were some soft shuffling sounds as Riku rifled through his cloak fabric for something, finally pulling out a bandana from the inside pocket that he used to tie his wind-ruffled hair away from his face. Once armed with a mop, he got back to work.

Sora wouldn’t stop nervously fidgeting until Ventus pried the mop from Riku’s hands and scolded him for trying to take on too much in one day.

\---

“Okay, so two mugs of ale for the adorable couple,” The woman said, ignoring Vanitas snarling that he was never under any circumstances adorable. “And for the young prince and his new knight?”

Sora meant to answer, really, he did, but he was too caught up with the journal that he had open on the table to look up for long enough to order something to drink. He’d never been to an actual restaurant before, never mind a tavern— somehow, it didn’t occur to him that she was even talking to him in the first place.

Everyone present let the silence drag on for a long moment. Eventually, King Leon cleared his throat to pick something at random.

“Give him a glass of-”

“He likes hibiscus tea.” Riku interrupted, an action that caused the waitress’ eyes to widen in alarm. Most people wouldn’t dare to speak over a king like that. “Make it iced, and put in a lot of sugar. However much sugar you think is enough, he’ll want more. Trust me.”

When he wasn’t immediately beheaded for his insolence, the woman hurriedly bowed in acknowledgement and returned to the kitchens.

The two glares and the pair odd looks that his inattention garnered managed to pull him out of his drawings once she was gone. Riku was the only one who wasn’t fazed by the fact that Sora hadn’t said anything, looking more politely curious about what he was doing than offended by his horrible social awareness. Sora quickly said his apologies and excuses, pulling his journal closer to his chest and leaning back into his seat when Riku tried to look at the charcoal-smudged pages. The sketch compilation that he was working on was way too embarrassing for Riku to see.

It was still just the unrefined scramblings of his mind out on two or three pages: Dreams that he had recently, half-finished action poses, some drawings of a few smaller sea dragons that he’d noticed while sitting in the sand that day, and the real icing on the cake, which was a handful of pictures of Riku, either carrying some unbelievably large ship part, hammering some boards on the hull with an iron nail bit carefully between his teeth and his fangs, or of him as he appeared now, lantern light laying bubbles of shivery orange over the usual blueish green eyes that Sora was used to. He didn’t want to miss the opportunity to record it. Something told him that Riku would try to rip the page out if he figured out that he’d become an unwilling muse.

Sora didn’t know how he was supposed to help himself.

Even though Riku’d been looking tired lately, and he was very aware of that, the knight had yet to stop being wonderful to Sora, who was just as hopelessly enchanted by his best friend as he’d ever been. During moments like these, in which Riku had no clue that the bored way he was twirling his hair around his finger would be remembered in anything but passing, he couldn’t stop his fingers from itching to get his likeness on paper.

There wasn’t any getting around it. Riku was _beautiful._ It was impossible to pick just one reason to explain why, the colors of his eyes and the angles of his body and the way that he moved his lips to form words all melting into a huge conglomerate of something breathtaking. He was _so_ pretty.

Too pretty not to jot down in quick strikes of charcoal that attempted to imitate his sharp jawline and sculpted shoulders, pulling softer curves when he got to his eyes and lips and the small smirk that he gave whenever Sora said something that made him want to laugh. It would practically be a crime to not scribble down what little of him he could capture to look back on later, because he knew that he was going to want it more than anything when he was too old to remember it all in detail. Riku was just the type of person who was made to occupy space in someone’s thoughts; it was impossible for him not to. Not if said person had eyes.

It didn’t take a genius or an artist to notice that his intelligent and intimidating gaze was bordered by an incredible degree of softness. He had a certain look about him, if you could manage to catch him off-guard, that was barely a difference between one expression and the next if you didn’t know what to search for. Sora did. The subtle change was in his whole body rather than his face, one accompanied by high-strung tensity, the other with no heat behind it whatsoever, standing relaxed, daring to pay only half of his attention in the presence of someone he was sure wasn’t going to attack him. 

Stars, he was maybe the most beautiful thing that Sora’d ever attempted to draw. Definitely his favorite one, even though that expression was almost impossible to get right in enough time to put his journal down and actually enjoy the experience of being out in public.

He could hear his past selves yelling at him not to waste the opportunity to socialize while it lasted. Sora rolled his eyes at himself, asserting that the real waste would be leaving the sketch unfinished. And he had to get it down while his reference was still readily available.

“You excited for tomorrow, Your Highness?” Ventus asked, deciding to extend an olive branch to him in case he was afraid to join the conversation on his own. “I know that you’ve never left the castle before, so it’s gotta be at least a little daunting, right?”

Sora blinked, only having absorbed two or three words with his attention still glued to his drawing. “Huh?”

A small nudge startled him into snapping his journal shut, straightening him stiff as a board against his will. He was overcome by a rush of blood in his face and a powerful burst of tingling where he’d been touched, made worse as he realized that the one who was withdrawing their hand from him was Riku. Sora tightened his throat around an involuntary flustered noise.

Oh gosh, he didn’t see, did he?

Riku smiled lazily, obviously entertained by the fact that Sora was floundering for an answer.

Ventus was too nice to leave him hanging like that, so he readily repeated the question when he realized Sora hadn’t been listening. He ran a hand through his hair, relieved, since he at least knew what he wanted to say about it and wouldn’t have to grasp for something generic to throw him off the scent.

Sora laughed awkwardly. “I’m not nervous at all. I mean, Riku’s gonna be there, and so are you, so I don’t have anything to worry about!”

“That’s true enough, I suppose.”

“Yeah. It’s gonna be cool to finally see Dad and Papa’s old castle from when they were kids and all. I’ve heard a lot about it. Apparently I have some relatives who live there, like, a cousin or something.”

King Cloud shook his head. “Your surrogate mother and her wife.”

“Right,” Sora said, snapping his fingers.

The prince hesitantly pulled his journal back up from his lap as Ventus reminisced on the last time he’d seen Sora’s mothers, fluttering the pages over to the one that he was working on while they were distracted. There were only a few more things to scratch down on the paper before it’d be done. Just a few more minutes.

“…That’s because Traverse Town is full of those fucking steampunk bastards.” Vanitas responded to something that Squall said, pounding a fist on the table. “Who gives a shit about clocks? Civilians should learn to tell time with their magic like everybody else.”

“Not everyone can do magic, Vani.” Ventus reminded him. “Clocks can be useful if you don’t feel like wasting the energy, or if you can’t afford to. Like that one time you got sick.”

“Slander. I don’t fucking get sick.”

“The week that I spent making you soup and tending to your fever begs to differ.”

The bickering was nothing but background noise to Sora, who had reabsorbed himself in trying to finish his sketch. He’d finally managed to get Riku to look the way he wanted, so his frantic sketching turned to obsess over the surroundings, mapping out the table that Riku was leaning on and the lamp that was casting the glow on his features. Riku’d gone back to twirling that one lock of hair out of boredom, which, while a good reference for the pose he was doing, kept snagging his attention for too long whenever he glanced up.

Having a best friend who was so damn pretty was exhausting to keep up with. He wondered how other people did it, how they managed to deal with the sudden inability to tear their eyes away the very minute that they realized _hey, wait a minute, this person might be a child of Aphrodite._

Sora almost threw his journal in his haste to close it when he felt a presence behind him, turning to see who it was and relaxing minutely once he realized it was the waitress with the table’s drinks. He gratefully accepted the tea that she handed him. Sipping it slowly, wondering how she knew he liked hibiscus, his eyes drifted to where Riku was grabbing a beverage from the tray that was identical to Ventus and Cousin Vani’s. He had to stop himself from spitting out the tea.

“Wait, Riku, we’re not allowed to drink that stuff yet!” He said, waving his hand to stop him. “It’s going to make you all nauseous and dizzy!”

The waitress let him take it anyway. Vanitas laughed at his dumbfounded expression as he watched Riku knock back a giant swig of it, wiping his mouth clean once he slammed the skein onto the table with a bang.

_“Riku!”_ Sora gasped, scandalized.

Vanitas was clutching his belly, laughing uproariously, and Riku had the nerve to look a little sheepish.

“I can’t get drunk.” Riku mumbled. “You know. Darkness users and toxins.”

The woman giggled as she finished handing the kings their waters, bowing out to give them some time to drink and talk amongst themselves.

He sighed in something like relief, taking his own gulp of tea before returning to his journal for the finishing touches. It was going to take him all night to get this done if he kept getting interrupted like this.

The din of the tavern around him faded to be vague and distant as he fell back into his work of converting Riku’s living and breathing image into a still moment on paper, only rejoining the conversation every ten to fifteen minutes to pipe in with a comment to make it sound like he was listening or to have a good excuse to study Riku’s eyes. It was easy to lose himself in them if he wasn’t careful, so he had to remain vigilant when he did so.

Hey, Sora couldn’t help the fact that Riku was distracting to look at. One couldn’t tell a fire not to burn or a river not to flow. The natural order of things was simply that Riku caused people’s hearts to race and their breathing to go funny and their faces to heat up, because that’s how they were and that’s how they always would be.

One more stroke around his arm… fix his eyebrow a little bit… and…

Sora looked up to see Riku’s mouth pressed to the rim of the ale skein, eyes closed as his throat moved with his swallows, then he set it down, the leftover drink on his lips causing them to glisten in the lantern light. He swiped his tongue over them a second later to lick them clean.

_Oh,_ he thought.

His charcoal snapped in half.

All the gods, goddesses, and deities of love in the universe were likely about to strike him down for making the comparison, but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that if it was possible to give love a human form, it wouldn’t look half as beautiful as Riku did right then. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, the room spinning like he was going to faint.

_What’s wrong with me?_

Sora sank to rest his forehead on the edge of the table. His body was shaking, eyes burning as if he was going to cry.

He’d never had a reaction this visceral before. Sora felt like he’d somehow developed a fever from the mere action of watching Riku, and when his memory rewound the moment, playing it all slow in front of his eyes, a jolt of electricity went down his spine that made his thoughts merge into a single insistent message all at once.

_Gods,_ Sora thought, forcing himself to breathe in and out at a normal pace. _I want him to kiss me._

\---

“I’m going outside.” Sora announced abruptly, already halfway across the room by the time any of them could register the words. Riku called for him to wait, stumbling up to his feet so he could put his sword straps back on, but the door to the tavern slammed shut, and he was gone.

What was that about?

The journal that he’d been drawing in for the whole evening was lying abandoned on Sora’s seat, broken stick of charcoal scattering black powder all over the cover. Riku eyed it warily. Did he mess up that badly or something? It couldn’t have made him _that_ upset.

Whatever the reason, it was Riku’s duty to stand by and protect him. He pulled all his equipment into position at lightning speed. Lacing up his boots, slapping on his arm guards, he took a quick sip of his ale and started to march towards the door to follow him. Before he could, Vanitas grabbed him by the hood of his cloak and pulled him away.

“The fates are about tonight,” He warned. “I’d be more hesitant to run my ass out of a safety zone if I were you.”

“It’s my job to get fucked up in the name of my liege.” Riku countered, slapping Vanitas’ hand off of him. The captain laughed.

“That’s what we pay you for.”

He pushed his way out of the bustling room, falling out into the cool night air on the other side.

It was dark, save for the lanterns in front of the building that extended all the way down to the cliffside. Above the ocean at the last lantern was Sora, sitting at one of the benches that the fishermen would usually take up when they were readying their buckets and boxes and rods for a long night on the sea. Riku hurried to catch up to him.

The sound of the ocean and the nighttime bugs was the only thing that he could hear until he got closer, and he had to bite back the speech he was a few seconds from doling out when he realized that there was something else to listen to.

Sora was crying.

He was rubbing at his arms, shoulders shaking as he rocked slightly back and forth, muttering a repeating phrase over and over and over again. “What’s wrong with me?” Sora asked himself, interrupted by another hitching sob. _“What’s wrong with me?”_

That gave him pause. He stood still, staring at his best friend now five or six lanterns away, just far enough that Sora hadn’t noticed him coming out to find him yet.

Nothing was wrong with him. Why did he think something was wrong with him?

“Why can’t I just…!” Sora scratched lines down his arms, making a frustrated sound, like he wanted to claw something out from underneath. “Get it out! Nobody _wants_ to touch me, why can’t I be happy with that?”

The whimpering reached his ears then, and Riku felt horribly guilty for witnessing this, knowing that he would be distraught if the roles were reversed and he discovered someone else was listening to him having some kind of panic attack. Riku wanted to help him, but he got the feeling that Sora was unable to be calmed in this state. It would be better if he left the prince to his own devices for a little while.

He couldn’t leave, Riku thought with a regretful snarl. His duty as Sora’s protector was to stay close enough to defend him if he needed it.

Out of politeness, he tried not to listen to what Sora was saying. He only caught every eighth word, approximately, most of which were more question words or something of the like. One word sparked his attention mildly. He shook it out of his mind quickly, scolding himself for holding onto it for to long, even though the word had been “kiss”, followed soon after by “soft”, which made his heart stutter before he could stop it.

Thinking about soft kisses and Sora in the same space of mind wouldn’t keep him sane for very long, so he discarded the words as best he could, letting his mind flatline into silence.

“I want to- to-” Sora sniffled. “ _Please,_ I want to kiss him, and hold his h-hand.”

Riku didn’t hear it.

“Just once. I’ll never need it after that.”

A noise from far below the cliff caused Riku to perk up in alarm. He heard several rocks tumble into the ocean.

There were claws sticking into the cliffside, he realized, the scuttling sound of something climbing the rocks echoing up from the chaos of the waves at a near deafening volume to his sensitive changeling ears. He could literally feel his primal instinct to defend Sora taking over his arms and his legs like a venom to his cells. It took everything he had to stay still, even though his body was screaming at him to pull Sora away from danger and draw his sword in his other hand.

“Please, I- _AH!”_ Sora shouted, staring wide-eyed at a wall of water that exploded up from the deep. Riku raced from where he was to the bench as he whipped out his shield and wrapped Sora close to his chest.

The instant that Riku’d positioned the shield over their heads, the water came crashing down, drenching everything in sight.

Shit, he really hadn’t wanted to give in that easily…

“Riku?” Sora yelled over the pouring water. Pressed into Riku’s blue travel cloak, or more particularly, held tightly by Riku’s arm looping across his back, his voice involuntarily jumped a few octaves. His face was blotchy when he managed to extract it from Riku’s chest enough to look up at his eyes. “Why are you here? What’s going on?”

“We’ve got company,” He replied, lowering the shield to reveal what the water had brought to them.

In front of them was an ocean dragon so huge that its claws were each about the size of a house, its long, elaborately scaled body curving off into the distance as it came to anchor said claws to the ground in front of them. There were whiskers trailing behind its massive snout, green and frilled like living kelp. Its eyes were two pale moons floating in the dark of the cliffside beyond.

When the dragon snorted, it sprayed fog from its giant nostrils that billowed around it to be swept away by the wind.

The dragon blinked, and Riku realized that the white eyes were actually hard shells of mother of pearl. It was likely that the dragon couldn’t see from them. That didn’t make him put down his guard, since even dragons that were blind were more than powerful enough to wipe Sora off the map without so much as a second thought.

Its great mouth opened, spilling a waterfall from between its needle-like teeth that seemed to be made from polished coral, and the last of it dripped from its huge beard of algae and moss.

_The time to make your choice dwindles._

More voices echoed around the first one, although Riku couldn’t see any other dragons in the immediate area. He glared.

_Make a choice, make a choice, make a choice,_ the voices encouraged.

_You will play a gamble with fate, your heart and your life on the line._ It said emotionlessly. _If you, Sora Leonheart Strife, wish to carry the heart of our youngest, then you must brave the flames of the Great Old Ones. Only with our blessings will we allow him to wake you from the dead._

Its jaw unhinged, and it jolted forward, shoving its mossy snout mere inches from where Riku and Sora stood together. The force of its breath blew their hair away from their faces.

_He is our family. So too will you be, should you succeed in your quest._

_The new dragon kings! The new dragon kings!_ The smaller voices chanted from the shadows. Riku shuddered.

It occurred to Riku that this dragon was probably one of his uncles or aunts, or grandparents, depending on what kind of dragon parts he’d been created with, and the thought unsettled him somewhat.

_I ask you to step away, Tia’an huruah Riku._ The dragon commanded. _I understand that he is yours, but the flames of the infinite cannot be taken in tandem._

Did he just get called a “first century”? (More importantly, did Sora just get called “his”?)

As if in a trance, Sora walked out of Riku’s grip, blue eyes running the same pale white as the great dragon’s. He nodded. There were still tears drying on his face from earlier.

“I won’t be burned.” Sora said confidently.

The cliff lit up blindingly white from the flames that spewed from the dragon’s mouth. Riku’s jaw dropped, and he tried to walk towards his friend, but he couldn’t push through the fire enough to get to him.

Riku’s skin was impervious to dragon fire. Sora’s wasn’t. He screamed for the dragon to stop, reaching for Sora in front of him, straining his fingertips just a little bit farther—

_Passed._ Riku heard, and the flames were gone as quickly as they’d come. _The flames of the infinite oceans have deemed you worthy to take his hand. May your sea travels be safe, and your ocean bounty be plentiful. I wish you well._

The voices chattered happily. _Well, well, well._

_And good luck with that kiss, young prince._

Then it sank slowly into the sea, staring resolutely forward until its head had disappeared under the inky black surface of the tide.

“Kiss?” Riku asked, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“U-Um, haven’t you heard?” Sora responded, waving his hand dismissively as his eyes slowly returned to their jewel-tone blue that he was known for. “It’s a type of chocolate.”

He didn’t seem to remember anything after the rain shower by the time that the blue was completely stable, so Riku didn’t bring it up, instead leading him gently by the hand back to the tavern so they could finish their dinner. Sora seemed even more stunned at the contact then he had when faced with getting roasted alive by magical fire.

Riku squeezed his hand softly before he let go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me putting on my clown wig and makeup every 8-10 business days with a new chapter that absolutely nobody asked for: hehehhoohohoho can't disappoint the fans!
> 
> Anyway can we get a mega f in the chat for Sora he has no fucking clue why Riku just randomly appeared to shield him from like 30 seconds of rain lol


	16. Overload

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody! I'M SORRY FOR BEING LATE AGAINNNNNNNNN AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. It was my birthday a few days ago so I took that day off (I usually only take two days off of writing in between uploads). I'm really sorry!! But that being said, I worked hard on this... so enjoy s'il vous plaît ! 
> 
> Warnings: mentions of death/suicide
> 
> Other: If you aren't familiar with wrestling, I'd suggest you take a quick glance over the scoring system. Unless you don't care. I promise I won't be mad. Also thank you for all comments/kudos!!!!!!!! They were the best birthday presents I could've asked for!!!!!!

“So, let me get this straight,” Riku grunted, glaring at the creature that was playfully swishing its tail behind him. “You’re the presence I’ve been sensing in Sora’s room since I received my wings.”

The elegant dragon simply flapped a few times in broad motions, sending a burst of cold air over Riku and his surroundings. Everywhere that the wind touched the surface of the waves, it froze into ice crystals that were swept away only moments later.

_That is correct._

“And you say you were sent by my grandfather?”

_Our grandfather,_ the dragon corrected.

Riku hated how much his wings resembled the ones that were currently put to annoying him, the giant appendages conjuring all these miniature snowstorms that kept freezing the heavy moisture of the nautical breeze to his chest. It was horribly cold, though he wasn’t bothered by the temperature so much as he was by how he had to keep brushing the frost off over and over.

_You and I are a part of the same elemental subspecies. By dragon standards, we’re practically twins._

Whatever. Although he knew the information was correct, nearly in the same way that he’d understood his relationship to that damned faerie woman, Riku was tired of being approached by magical entities that wanted to make his life difficult. He shook his head and then brushed his hair away from his face.

The research that he’d been compiling on both dragons and fae had revealed that his bloodline was a lot more complicated than he’d initially thought. Understanding the faerie courts was a nigh impossible feat by any standards, and the dragon clans were only the slightest bit better, leaving him with only the weakest idea of either side. Well, if he was correct about low he was on the hierarchy, then he really shouldn’t be harassed by dragons nearly as much as he was as of now.

Riku squinted at the dragon, crossing his arms loosely. “Need I remind you that I’m half-fae as well?”

_That means nothing. The dragon clans welcome all who share our blood, including our changeling siblings and their Khura. You and your charge are family._

Red flushed out Riku’s face, and he coughed into his fist for a few seconds in a vain attempt to hide the color on his horrifically pale skin.

“He’s not my Khura!” He insisted. “He’s my hoard. There’s a difference.”

It’d taken more than half of his lifespan away just to admit to himself that he’d claimed Sora as a hoard. The embarrassment of thinking of him as his Khura was unprecedented. Stupid dragons, stupid faeries— why couldn’t they leave him alone about this stuff?

_Well, as your elder by five hundred years, I can confidently say that I’ve never in my time kissed my hoard on the forehead because it looked too adorable when it was sleeping._ The dragon retorted, following as Riku leapt off of the rocks that they’d been perched on to fly closer to the ship they were trailing. _Unless my hoard was a human as cute as yours, perhaps._

Riku bristled at the comment and found himself growling before he could suppress the urge in his chest. The dragon snickered.

_Relax, I’m not going to fight you for him. He’s very clearly happiest under your protection._

He felt so worked up that he was about one pin drop away from strangling the life out of something. If not his newfound family member, then it was going to be one of those squids that he was sure he smelled about 2,000 feet below the surface. Based on the way the other dragon was licking its chops, he figured that he wasn’t alone, both of them considering diving in to snatch one before it could get away.

The thought was shaken out of Riku’s mind. Eating a squid raw without utensils would be messy and gross, so he readily dropped the urge that told him to kill one and instead tried to focus on calming his anger to manageable levels.

In turn, the present company had no issues with diving quickly and efficiently into the water, returning only seconds latter grappling a common squid into submission while balancing carefully in the air next to him. Riku pretended not to grimace at the blue blood that dripped into the water below when it was sliced open and gobbled up by a gaping maw.

_What?_ The dragon asked, blood still smeared on what used to be a gleaming white-scaled muzzle. _Can your big sister not get hungry every now and again?_

Riku shook his head. If she was going to be acting like that the whole time she was here, Riku would need to keep his eyes focused very much away from the gory nightmare that was pierced through her claws and teeth, or else he knew he’d be seeing it again the next time that he was forced to sleep.

“Look. Say what you need to say, okay? Then leave me alone.” He pleaded.

The two of them flew in silence for a few long minutes.

_Very well. I come bearing some warnings from our family, which they asked me to keep until Sora first met with the flames of the infinite._

His sister made no motion to beckon him over, but he understood that she was offering for him to rest on her back while she spoke. He decided to take it out of politeness, and maneuvered himself in the air until he could flap gently and take a seat between two of her spine ridges, both of which resembled icy mountains. His wings laying over her made them appear to be a four-winged dragon when he checked their reflection in the water.

_Back when you first received your wings, I offered the prince a choice on behalf of the Great Old Ones._ The dragon elaborated. _He could either risk falling in love with you, leading to his inevitable death, or he could take the promise of safety, which would lead to you being slaughtered by Maleficent._

“Maleficent?” He asked.

_The faerie who created you from her blood and our parents’ bones._

Ah. Of course.

“He should take the path that kills me,” Riku said without hesitation. “I see no reason for him not to; I’m prepared to take it if I must.”

Beneath him, his sister snorted another cloud of nitrogen.

_You don’t understand— the fates created the two of you to be universal foils. If he sacrifices you for his safety, he will live out the rest of his days feeling empty and sick from the lack of your darkness. His light would overpower him._

He’d had hope for less than a minute, sadly crushed into dust. For a second, just thinking that Maleficent _might_ eventually kill him was enough to feel relieved. She’d said that he couldn’t do it himself. He was inclined to believe that. However, if she were to get tired of him and kill him instead, that would’ve been a much better plan than anything he could’ve come up with by himself.

Maybe he could put a pin in that for later. There had to be some force of darkness that Riku could replace himself with to make sure that Sora wouldn’t be in pain.

“Well, I guess the good news is that he’s definitely not going to fall in love with me. I don’t have to worry about that.” Riku frowned, running a hand through his hair pensively. “Do you think it would cause an issue from my end? I hope not.”

After a few minutes of thrashing and spouting plumes of snow, Riku realized that she wasn’t trying to throw him off, and was instead laughing.

_I don’t know what to tell you, tia’an huruah. You’re quite the riot._

“Don’t call me a first century.” Riku mumbled. “It’s demeaning.”

In the distance, Riku saw the orange of the ship’s internal candlelight shifting and sweltering behind the distortion of the fog, looking serene and peaceful.

_It’s an honorific._ She commented. _I am a tiasenkh huruah, which has higher seniority. Calling you tia’an is… affectionate coming from me, considering that you have yet to even complete your first century. I could just call you fledgling._

He rejected this with a number of expletives as he crossed his arms petulantly. The dragon laughed again.

_Anyway, I’d encourage you to consider the path, irrespective of how possible you find it. Sora could fall in love with you, even briefly, and if he does, he will be in danger. He will most likely die. But not in every timeline will he theoretically stay dead._

“What do you mean by that?” Riku asked, despite dreading the probably trick answer.

It was getting really old, being told again and again that Sora was going to die. He already got enough of that from his dreams. With her tail, she swatted at the thin, faded line on Riku’s wrist.

_Fate was unable to resist the curse that was placed upon you, so they instead orchestrated a number of potential realities stemming from the choices you make. Sora’s life string does not always terminate after you kill him, meaning that there is potential for us to bend the rules of life and death just a little bit to your advantage._

Bending the rules of life and death?

_For all I know, you might not kill him at all. The only qualification is that you follow the words of the prophecy exactly. As long as there’s room for interpretation, you may be able to overturn the destiny that Maleficent intended without ever needing the interference of the dragon clans._

She flapped her wings powerfully, launching the two of them high above the water until Riku could no longer see the candlelight down below. Then she plummeted. Riku grabbed tightly onto her spine ridge to keep himself seated as she expertly unfurled her wings at last second to keep them from submerging in the icy waters. 

_What we offer,_ she said gently, _is a backup plan. If you kill him, depending on a number of different factors… we will allow you to wake him from the dead._

Riku let her words echo into nothingness. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that option.

_It’s taken a long time for us to get permission from the greater elements and fate themself to reverse the rules of human death. What they agreed upon is the following condition: If Sora is exposed to all the flames of the infinite, then his soul will be reborn, in a sense, as a dragon. He would be able to live again for as long as you are willing to share your immortality with him._

Of course he'd be willing. What else would he even use immortality for? Himself? “I take it that I’m immortal, then.” Riku muttered in a hollow voice. “Lovely.”

_Only if nothing kills you, you don’t get sick, or if you don’t decide to die on your own time._ She assured. _Otherwise yes._

Stars knew that the last one didn’t work. If he could die by deciding he was done here, he would’ve been a dead man years ago.

_The point is that it is a possible option. However, it would require that Sora survive all seven tests, amongst many other variables that have not been set in stone yet. So, I would not fret too much, tia’an._

Relieved, Riku fluttered his wings a few times. “As in, there’s still no guarantee that he’ll fall for me.” 

And it was true. His safest bet right now was just to keep himself contained. Don’t show any feelings, keep well hidden underneath layers of apathy, and pray that his horrific personality and ugly appearance would be enough to stop Sora from ever even considering him as an option.

Riku’s heart felt like a pincushion.

When Riku hopped off her back to hover next to her, she gave him an exasperated look. The color of her scales in the unreliable light was nearly the same as his own.

_One can only hope._

\---

Their time out on the ocean lasted about eight days in total, which amounted to seven incredibly strange nights in which Sora was more free and yet more trapped than he’d ever been in his life.

There was something so intensely refreshing about being surrounded by people, for one. He liked hearing the sounds of joking and laughter echoing throughout the three floors of the below-deck space, he delighted in the singing or whistling that came from people working the rigging upstairs, and there was nothing sweeter, in his opinion, than being able to spend time with Ventus and Riku by sparring and gaming or otherwise without the threat of being caught constantly hanging over their heads. Sora felt amazing.

But on the other hand, living in such close quarters to Riku was worrying on quite a few fronts.

Of course they were used to living with each other by now. That, Sora was accustomed to: eating meals together, playing games, doing various chores— that was just life as usual. What took him by surprise had been the “sleeping in the same room” thing. Their cabin was much smaller than Sora’s bedroom. It was barely big enough to hold two small beds, which meant…

“Sorry!” Sora rushed to apologize, finding his face smushed against Riku’s stomach. “I sh-should have been watching where I was going!”

Strong hands gripped around Sora’s shoulders as he was pushed off with unfair ease. Sora shifted his arms to hold him up so he was half-planking over him instead of partaking in the mess of limbs that they’d been only a second ago. “It’s fine,” Riku said stiffly, and Sora could see a drop of sweat slip down his face and disappear into the silver locks that were fanned out over the ground. Something weird struck through Sora’s chest when he moved his gaze back to Riku’s eyes.

They stayed still for a beat too long. Sora felt feverish again, like he kept feeling over and over when things like this happened, and when he made the incredible mistake of dropping his vision just a _little_ lower, he could’ve sworn that his heart actually tore itself out of his body.

There was no reason for anyone’s lips to look like that. Why did they look like that?

Riku, to the detriment of Sora’s last remaining brain cells, parted his lips just slightly as he seemed to flush under the attention.

_Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me. Please._

He shook in place from imagining such a thing, and continued to do so long after Riku had wiggled out from under him and bolted out the door like his heels were on fire.

Sora knew he should really finish getting dressed and go after him, but he ended up collapsing on the bed instead to hug his pillow close, wracked by full-on tremors now. They would be gone in a minute. Hopefully. All he had to do was stop thinking about Riku turning them over to pin him to the floor and kiss the living daylights out of him.

This was why living in close quarters was hazardous. It was too easy to get caught in these awkward traps, where he knew he was the only one making it super weird.

He felt guilty for wanting physical contact so badly that he just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Riku didn’t like to be touched, and he _had_ to respect that. It wasn’t fair of him to be feeling like this all the time if he knew that the very thing that made Sora happy would make Riku uncomfortable. Let alone if what he wanted was as personal as _kissing._ Sora’s guiltiest fantasies were mostly cuddling, but kissing made its way in there occasionally, and every time it did, he felt like the scum of the earth.

Why did Riku have to be so… so… _kissable?_

He shook harder, pulling the pillow closer.

The days dragged on one by one in a similar fashion, Riku and Sora running into each other much more often than they could have ever thought possible as they rounded corners and slammed into each other, or tripped over something as they were getting dressed (Sora on one occasion being terrifyingly shirtless when Riku accidentally knocked them both down onto the bed), or even somehow managing to get the job of manning the eagle’s nest together, pressed nearly flush on one side for the better part of an afternoon.

Proximity was worse than torture, he concluded frustratedly, once he’d been secured on either side of his hips by Riku’s muscular thighs. The blade pressed to his neck was one millimeter away from drawing blood, and Sora wished that Riku would close it already and end his suffering. He never should have agreed to that sparring match.

Ventus seemed to agree with him. The knight looked like he was about to pull his hair out, dark circles under his eyes pronounced enough to match Riku’s permanent set when his little brother all but launched off of Sora a second later and announced that he was going to grab something to eat from the galley. Sora weakly requested a pastry as he collapsed back onto the deck.

Day six faded into seven.

Sora was alone in the darkness of his cabin, waiting for Riku to be done with whatever it was he said he was doing every night. He left for about two hours each time and wouldn’t return until Sora was supposed to be asleep, which was really the only time that Sora wasn’t practically stepping on Riku’s feet. It gave both of them a much-needed respite. For Sora, probably due to very different reasons.

Sometimes he got a little tired of his brain screaming at him about Riku’s soft hair or his pretty eyes, or anything else, honestly, because dedicating this much brain power to it felt more than a little pathetic. He whipped out his journal while the candlelight still lasted, poured out his emotions into a rough portrait, then nearly chucked it out the window when he realized what he’d drawn. This was… this was basically self-indulgent nonsense.

Was it normal to be daydreaming about (and _drawing_ ) his best friend’s face all pink and flustered underneath him, his eyes averted, lips just barely an inch away from his own?

He didn’t know. He didn’t think so.

But he wouldn’t have to think about it if he just forced his body into sleep. Sora spent some time convincing himself that the candle was too melted to provide light for more than ten minutes even though it could clearly last for thirty.

He tucked his journal away, struggled into a pair of pajamas, and settled under the fluffy covers of the bed. Maybe it’d be easier to deal with all this confusing emotional stuff in the morning. Yet despite his fatigue, the soft mattress, and the moonlight seeping through the window, Sora lay awake.

An hour came and went like a second. Whenever he blearily tried to check the time, it wasn’t time for Riku to be back.

The rocking of the ship was a constant disturbance no matter how comfortable he tried to get in the bedding. Instead of being reassuring, the thumping and rumbling of people moving back and forth throughout the ship was annoying, making Sora want to stomp outside to tell everyone to shut up and stop interrupting him whenever he started to drift off. And no matter what he did, there was nothing he could do to get Riku out of his head. 

_Riku. Soft skin, soft smile, soft lips…_

_A gentle embrace, warmth on a cold winter’s night. The crackling of a fire that could barely be heard beyond the rush of Riku’s pulse under his hands. His arms moving to wrap around Riku’s waist. A forehead pressed lightly to his own. Falling asleep as he hugged him close._

Stop thinking about it! Stop thinking about it. Stop. Stop. Just stop.

He didn’t stop thinking about it.

_Thumbs stroking over his cheeks, carefully tilting his face up. Everything warm to the point of it being a little overwhelming._

The trembling was back again.

_Hot breath fanning over his face. Riku’s body so fully entangled with his that he didn’t know where Riku ended and Sora began. Drawing closer, and closer, and closer, heart rabbiting._

_Closer._

_Closer._

_Closer…_

Sora shouldn’t do it. He was hyperventilating into his pillow, wanting so badly to cry as he ripped himself away from imagining the kiss that he desired with the entire culmination of his being. He couldn’t bring himself to violate Riku like that, even in a fantasy. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. Not right, not right, not right, not right, not right.

But he wanted it so _much._

And he was so, so weak.

It was technically the morning of day eight by the time that Riku returned from his nighttime routine outside. Sora was far beyond humiliated when he finally heard the sounds of his knight taking his armor off only a few feet away.

This was bad. This was so bad. It was a bad of unrealistic proportions. He’d had his way with it, he thought, and for what? 

He felt dirty and ashamed of himself, like he’d been stripped down and painted bright red in every place on his body that he wanted Riku to touch him. Forced to make eye contact with him, knowing that _he_ knew, could see his paint-covered form, the handprints like blood smudged across his neck and his chin and all throughout his hair, on his cheeks, on his shoulders, around his back, decorating his chest and stomach, ghosting across his thighs and shins. There was nothing but red all over his arms and his legs, dripping from his hands. His mouth was absolutely sullied with crimson kiss marks.

Could Riku see it? Was he really unaware of what Sora was feeling, or was he simply too polite to mention it? Did he recognize the handprints as his own? Sora felt as though he was one breath away from catching on fire. He had to make sure that Riku wasn’t packing his things and running away just at the sight of him.

When there was no sound behind him anymore, Sora chanced opening his eyes the barest fraction of a degree.

Riku was still there.

He was sitting cross-legged on his bed like he was going to meditate, except his arms were not at rest, and were rather carding through his hair with one hand, a hairbrush clutched in the other. Riku was too preoccupied by what he was doing to notice the tiny gasp that Sora gave upon seeing him there.

The moon made his hair practically glow a brilliant silvery-white as he ran his brush through it, each individual strand looking like it was a streak of starlight in physical form.

_OH DEAR GODS PLEASE KISS ME._

Sora wanted to sob, unsure of what to do with all of these feelings that were spilling out of him in the form of red paint and fancy script plastered all over his skin. Two words repeated themselves over and over again like a mantra across every inch of his body. He had to stop thinking them. He had to stop. It didn’t stop.

_Kiss me,_ he thought when Riku hummed deep and low, like a purr.

_Kiss me,_ Sora repeated once Riku’d put his brush away and fluffed up the blankets to climb inside. He tried not to watch him getting comfortable, as if that mild decency would make up for his thoughts.

_Kiss me up against the wall, press me into the bed, kiss me with everything you’ve got or lazily like you plan on doing it for hours. Kiss me all day and drive me insane, leave me begging and panting for your lips, but please, whatever you do, just tell me I’m good._

“Did I wake you?” Riku whispered into the relative silence of the room. Sora’s face lit aflame, and he thanked the darkness for keeping him well-hidden.

He swallowed thickly. “No.”

“…You should get some sleep, Sora.”

“You too.”

They didn’t.

\---

Ventus studied the letter that Vanitas had left with him as he pretended to supervise Riku and the prince’s third sword fight of the day, only keeping up the façade by shooting the two a thumbs-down whenever it seemed like they were getting too rowdy.

They were like hurricanes in battle. On anyone else but each other, it was likely that they would’ve broken bones and bodies beyond capacity of healing. As it was, they were perfectly matched storms of fury and fun competitive spirit that came at each other with the force of a thousand suns, a collision course of darkness and light that resulted in such powerful bursts of magic that it shook the sky.

Riku was never this free about his magic during any other time. He even bared those fancy-looking fangs once or twice when he couldn’t hold back a huge smile, enjoying the fight in spite of his reservations surrounding appearing too emotional in a crowd.

Ah, well, that was his problem right now. Ventus was busy.

He’d been preoccupied looking over all of Vanitas’ letters for the past few hours, laughing to himself about how ridiculous they were. Vanitas really had just decided to write him an annoyingly long and convoluted letter for every day that he would be out on the ocean, like some kind of nerd. Today’s was cut into a frickin’ paper snowflake, which made deciphering the tiny script practically impossible with the waves rocking the boat back and forth, and the incredibly violent battle being raged right next to him didn’t exactly help matters.

“Light!” Sora yelled, exploding a nearby barrel into fire and golden glitter shrapnel. He felt a piece of him die as he watched his labor go up in sparkly flames.

Riku sliced away the attack like nothing. “That all you got?”

“Hardly!”

More explosions ensued. Ventus ignored them, squinting at the fine print of the paper like it would suddenly make sense. He had another sheet of paper in front of him that he was using to transcribe the text into something legible for future reference.

Okay, so he was pretty sure that the first line was supposed to say “Dearest Venty-Wenty”, but he was unsure about how many of the following words were curse words or if they were just badly misspelled. Most likely the former.

Vanitas’ words were interspersed by insults and crude remarks or symbols whenever he felt like it, regardless of how much grammatical sense they made, and the rest of the writing was mostly threatening him to come back alive so the captain could kill him personally. Occasionally he caught some instructions for Riku’s training (which he rolled his eyes at, thinking it was stupid to give tasks during a vacation) or advice to force Sora into drinking more water and less hot chocolate. Ventus snorted at that. Both of them knew perfectly well that Riku’d already taken it upon himself to do all the motherly bullying that was necessary to keep the prince alive and functioning. He took after Aqua in that way.

Sora yelped out an apology to one of the sailor women when he found himself standing on her table, having accidentally knocked the pipe out of her mouth while trying to get up there. He didn’t have time for anything more than that before Riku had already jumped to clash their swords on the raised platform. The prince knocked him away, using his tendency to float as a help to launch himself to the upper deck of the ship by the wheel.

Alive and incredibly well-protected, yes, though sheltered he was not while under Riku’s care. They certainly were fond of their sparring sessions.

Ventus had never seen two people who liked to fight each other with so much gusto, aside from maybe Prince Sora’s parents. It was like they couldn’t even eat breakfast until they’d beaten the crap out of each other at least six times, although it was never out of any kind of malicious intent— they simply loved doing it, which was clear from their excited smiles and compliments when the other landed a particularly good hit. Ventus also noticed the concerned glances that they threw each other whenever it got on the brink of too much, either preparing to stop just in case.

It was their form of affection, he supposed. Vanitas was kind of similar. After all, his way of telling Ventus to have a safe journey was to write this absolute monstrosity of a literary piece.

The two danced back and forth on the railing of the upper deck as they clashed their swords together in an almost endless rhythm.

“Watch your step,” Riku cautioned breathlessly. “I don’t want you to fall.”

“I’m good!” Sora replied with an extra hard swing of his sword. His knight smirked and caught him in a deadlock.

Ventus was only mildly worried, though he knew that Vanitas’ training would have prepared Riku to fight in much more precarious circumstances than what he was facing. He tried to focus on the letter once again and managed to wrap up the final few sentences in only another minute. There were still more to go before he could consider his work finished.

A commotion must have happened while he was distracted, because the next time he looked up, they were back on the lower deck and everyone was running out of their way. The two were trading kicks, punches, and jabs that never connected, always a millimeter too far to cause damage. They seemed to be using it as a dodging exercise.

Sora’s sword was sticking out of the deck. He was still happily fighting without it in his grip, just as how Riku respectfully abandoned the use of his weapon to keep it going.

Ventus raised an eyebrow at them, putting down his quill to watch for real this time.

Riku’s usually graceful movements were becoming more sluggish the farther that Sora pushed him towards the wall. In a last-minute panic, he ducked into a wrestling stance, wrapping his arms around Sora’s legs to slam him to the floor. Sora scrambled to his stomach.

As soon as Sora tried to stand, Riku was glued to his back. He knocked down Sora’s left elbow before he could gain any elevation through his legs, then used his arm as leverage to tilt them both to the side. Sora’s shoulders hit the ground.

“One, two, three-” Ventus shouted for them, motioning with his hand that the move was within legal parameters. “Near fall points to Riku!”

Somehow, Sora managed to wriggle free enough to try and flip their roles, and the two of them rolled across the floor in an attempt to keep the other pinned. Riku’s sword sheath kept catching on the floorboards. It slowed him down only slightly. The advantage gave Sora what he needed to press his entire body weight into keeping Riku underneath him, Riku struggling to lift the pressure away from him as he audibly gasped for breath.

Sora’s hands locked under his shoulder and he propped his legs up behind him to push harder down. Ventus counted two seconds, then slammed his hand down on the table.

“Pin! Sora wins!”

Neither Sora nor Riku moved out of the position they were left in, Riku’s eyes half-lidded as he pawed at the ground with one hand. His pupils were hazy.

“Sora, you won,” Ven repeated. “Ease up so he can breathe.”

The prince startled, lifting his weight up with an apology already at the tip of his tongue before Riku could so much as go limp in relief. He was mostly fine after a moment of incredibly raw breathing. Sora was still above him even though he was no longer actively keeping Riku there, and then everyone who was watching drew to an uneasy silence.

Ventus didn’t understand what was going on until he really got a good look at Sora and Riku’s faces. The two of them were nose-to-nose, eyes basically crossed in their efforts to meet each other’s gazes. They looked terrified, but inexplicably and completely enraptured in the other, lost to whatever was going on in the world around them. Riku’s pale skin betrayed an incredibly heavy flush. Sora’s was harder to see, though very much present, as sure as the sky was blue.

“Rematch,” Riku rasped, and the moment was broken.

Sora heaved like he was on the verge of passing out. “Sword, or…?” Riku shook his head. The prince nodded his understanding, settling into wrestling stance. “Okay. One more time.”

They asked Ventus to ref for their final match of the morning. He flipped a coin, which gave the choice to Sora. He deferred to Riku.

“Bottom.” The knight claimed. Ventus gestured for his brother to get into position at the center of the deck as Sora staggered over to drape himself on top, one arm around Riku’s stomach and the other perched underneath Riku’s elbow. At the count of three, they both started moving.

Riku stood before Sora could even think of knocking him down, grabbing his hands and breaking the grip on his hipbone. He whipped around while cutting his arm between them and was in neutral stance in two seconds flat. However, Sora’d followed him to standing, already having anticipated the move. They got caught in a headlock effective immediately.

It was so fast that Ventus barely understood what happened. By the time he was back in the loop, Riku was ducking under Sora’s arm to head-throw him over his shoulder. He hit the floor with a painful crack.

Tired from their previous match, Riku was too slow getting back down to the ground. Sora was on his stomach again. Not to his disadvantage quite yet, as Riku quickly extracted Sora’s arm to force it behind his back, then surged in to close the distance between their bodies. He lodged his arm tightly underneath Sora’s as he started roughly pushing them forward to flip him over. Sora could only thrash and very little else.

“C’mon,” Riku grunted, panting in between one word and the next. “Go down… just like that.”

There was nothing for him to do at this point except give in to Riku and let his shoulders touch the deck. He strained to get free for a few more moments, then resignedly, slowly, was pushed to the floor. Ventus declared the pin.

He and Sora exchanged strained breaths for a few moments. Eventually, Riku smirked, releasing his hold on the prince in order to ruffle his hair. “Good boy.” He teased.

Sora immediately ran so red that he couldn’t even speak.

_Goodness gracious,_ Ventus thought to himself. _These two need to get a room._

Everyone congratulated Riku on his victory, then took up the losing battle of pleading with him to go down to the galley for breakfast already so they could start cleaning up. He sheepishly ruffled his hair, commenting that he could probably eat, although he declined to go until Sora had given him the go-ahead. The prince was having what looked like a nervous breakdown on the ground.

“Your Highness?” Someone close to him asked, nudging his side with their foot. “Are you alright down there?”

Ven decided very quickly that he wanted nothing to do with whatever was going on between the two of them. It was entirely Riku’s problem to fix now. Being the voice of reason was his job back at the castle, not here; Ventus was done trying to point his brother and the prince’ stupid asses in the right direction.

And speaking of the right direction…

“LAND HO!” The sailor in the eagle’s nest cried, pointing forward to the giant cloud of night that was marring the blue skyline.

Off in the distance was their first destination: the ever-darkened hub of technological innovation that served as a refuge for all sailing the world’s seas, the inky black silhouette of Traverse Town.

“Get ready to dock, everybody!” Ventus shouted, excited by the promise of solid ground for the first time in a week. “We’re heading to the city!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it obvious that I miss wrestling? I actually acted out the fighting scenes with my twin brother so they are guaranteed effective strategies. Anyway hbwfrbkjabskjvbqkjlwnjnvqkjeb girl help I'm dying of yearning


	17. Different Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back on my bullshit again, boys! I would like to wish everyone a preemptive happy new year. 
> 
> There are a few notes that I wanted to share for this chapter. Firstly, that I am ace, and thus the way I remember viewing human bodies as a fifteen-year-old was very different than how I assume most people did. The way I describe people may or may not be odd to you because of its... lack of teenage horniness, I guess? Just wanted to warn you guys. Secondly, as a fun tidbit, the dragon-themed hotel room in Traverse Town is a real thing in the games. I thought it was hilariously convenient. Almost everything else is inaccurate to the town's layout for Plot Purposes.
> 
> And thank you so so so soooooooooo much for comments and kudos! They really give me life bro <3

Okay, he’d bite the bullet and admit it. Riku felt the slightest bit overwhelmed when they actually entered Traverse Town.

It was bigger than anything he’d ever seen before on a nearly catastrophic scale. Compared to the Destiny Islands, in which the biggest city was mostly composed of locally-run taverns, curiosity shops, and fish markets, Traverse Town was mind-blowingly gigantic. There were endless streets of stores that sold all kinds of interesting things, from textiles to stained glass archways. Riku counted at least six different armories and swordsmiths just in District 2. A hell of a lot more were said to lay beyond the three main districts that the town was divided into if you knew which streets to take. And apparently, the small army of islanders that had decided to find shelter in the city instead of staying with the ship was familiar with these passageways. It didn’t take long upon entering the huge town gates for Sora’s parents to lead them into the relatively unknown fourth and fifth districts.

Kings Strife and Leon waltzed from place to place like they owned every single one they stepped foot in. They clearly knew their way around, and the people seemed to know them right back— plenty of the older shopkeepers recognized them as they passed through, and would clap them on the shoulder, reminiscing on their war days from way back when as they inquired about the so-called son that they’d never bothered to bring around after they’d settled in together. Sora was presented to them like a somewhat shy but eager trophy. Riku tried his best not to sneer at the people treating him as such, gripping the prince’s wrist like iron every time someone new approached.

He hated the superficiality of some of them. Sora wasn’t some kind of object to be admired like they were sizing him up for sale, and he hated even more the fact that Sora’s parents didn’t notice it happening. His best friend laughed uncomfortably whenever someone mentioned his average muscles or short stature, like it was _any_ of their business what he looked like. Riku’d never needed to hold back so many insults in his life. It was like Vanitas was trying to possess him into using every curse word he’d ever learned whenever someone made a comment about Sora’s height, weight, or otherwise.

“I’m not pudgy,” Sora protested with a halfhearted chuckle, stepping away from his newest skeptic in the middle of an overcrowded jewelry store. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

The woman poked at Sora’s stomach and ignored his flinch. Riku’s hand immediately jumped to his sword hilt.

“You kidding me? You’re so soft around your belly that I bet you’d be dead ten minutes into a raid. Kids these days are getting so lax in their training, you know? When your parents and I were that age, if we were in your shape, we would’ve been tossed from the forces on sight.”

Not so subtly, Riku fixed the shopkeeper with the most poisonous glare that he could muster, receiving back an unimpressed look that made him _burn_. There was very little stopping him from tearing her to shreds this instant. Only out of courtesy to the other customers did Riku decide not to take this fight, digging his fingers harder into Sora’s wrist and tugging him towards the exit.

“What a tone-deaf thing to say in a city of refugees,” the knight forced from between gritted teeth. “I don’t know about you, but I consider the fact that children no longer have to go to war a good thing.”

The door jingled alarmingly when he wrenched it open and practically shoved Sora out onto the busy street. He sent a quick half-bow to the kings, signaling that he would bring him back unharmed at a later time, then kicked it shut with his foot. Barely a second had passed when the door opened again quite suddenly. He shot his hand out to close around the woman’s throat, lifting her to eye level.

“And Sora’s pudge is adorable.”

Then he dropped her and wiped his hands off like he’d touched something nasty.

Back outside, Sora was clueless as to what’d occurred, and Riku intended to keep it that way for now. It was only a matter of time before Ventus would be dragging him in to apologize anyway. The prince could wait until then to find out. Wanting to get out of dodge as quickly as possible, Riku grabbed Sora’s wrist again, winding through the infinite alleys to find somewhere that wasn’t full of all these godsdamned _people._

“Hey, what was that about?” Sora asked breathlessly. He was struggling to keep up with Riku’s angry stomps, which were a little too far apart for his stride to match. “Did I miss something?”

Down to the left, past all the food vendors, through an archway covered by crackling electric lights of varying colors (a terrifying new invention that Traverse Town was famous for), and onto an avenue of places advertising coffee, Riku’s senses picked up on an area just a little further that had little to no light magic, which meant there were also fewer people. He made a beeline for it as he dragged Sora stumbling and flailing behind him.

Riku tightened his fingers to a deathly pressure. “She was making fun of you.”

The drag of Sora’s feet finally slowed Riku down, little by little, until the both of them were catching their breaths in front of a rundown street that was almost devoid of pedestrians. Riku nudged the prince to follow him onto it.

“It’s… ah…” Sora panted. “It’s fine. I think she was just trying to make Dad and Papa laugh.”

“Shitty way to go about it.”

The prince gave him a gentle look, like he was politely trying to tell him he was wrong, and Riku bristled and turned away from him. Sora was too nice for his own good.

Riku huffed, opening his mouth just to close it again. He turned back around to give Sora his opinion. The words died on his tongue once he met his eyes. Butterflies deciding to attack him now of all moments, Riku shifted his eyes to the floor as he spoke.

“Besides,” He mumbled, too softly to be intelligible. “I think you look fine like that. You’re very… squishy.”

“You know I can’t hear you when you’re whispering, Ri.”

Riku looked away sharply. “It was nothing. Shut up.”

They ended up silently browsing through the street’s small cluster of shops as they looked for a place to duck inside of. Riku, in attempts not to speak his mind, focused his attention on deciding which place would be the most convenient for a quick respite from the wind.

The climate of Traverse Town was very different from the broiling humidity of their home country, being dry and briskly cold in its eternal night. Riku hated to admit that he felt much more comfortable here than he ever had been in the Destiny Castle. Sora, however, couldn’t say much of the same, shivering in the thin tunic that he’d brought along for the journey. It was the only thing he had that was versatile enough for travel, but it wasn’t the warmth that he needed. Riku’s brain had started turning on instinct. Mapping out the steps he could take to remedy Sora’s problem was a much more efficient replacement for the less constructive thoughts about how best to slaughter that shopkeeper on sight if they ever crossed paths again.

There was an old temple at the end of the street that looked like it was open for visitors. Bracketed by the brilliant night sky, Riku found that it reminded him a bit of his recent flights with his sister, the distant light of gentle flames reminiscent of what their ship looked like from far away. It felt comfortable. Familiar.

Familiar wasn’t a feeling that Riku usually welcomed. Even so, he felt a powerful urge to usher Sora inside, feeling as though there was a reason for him to have encountered it.

_In there,_ he indicated with his hand. They shuffled through the entrance.

Riku immediately felt a spike of dread when they walked in. It was a lovely place, warm and welcoming- Sora smiled brightly as he was met with the relieving and familiar sight of candles instead of the whistling pipes and electric coils of the other shops- and yet Riku couldn’t bring himself to enjoy it, eyes landing on a gigantic collection of dragon statues.

Amazing.

“Welcome,” They heard someone say from around the corner. Sora waved, ducking out of Riku’s grip to sidle up the brazier in front of the closest statue. It was simmering with blue and purple flames, radiating heat that the prince was happy to soak up.

Welp. His luck was already so bad that he couldn’t even be surprised.

Riku stepped farther in, warily studying the white jade that composed the likeness of his grandfather, the king of the ocean. It looked a lot like him, he’d give it that… although it was about a thousand times too small. The other dragon was presumably the rumored queen of the mountains. Riku couldn’t attest to the accuracy, never having met her before.

There were two other dragons on either side of them, which he assumed to be the queen of the sun’s fire, staring down the king of earth’s winds. He saw the monarchs of day and night farther ahead, and in the very back of the temple sat a statue of Chaos herself.

Riku hadn’t realized that there were followers of the dragons in this city; it was rare to hear of a temple to them that hadn’t been destroyed after the last conflict between dragons and humans. He supposed that was probably why it was such an out of the way spot. Judging by the overflowing piles of books and scrolls everywhere, it must have been one of the favored ones, under a particular dragon’s protection.

Ah, yes, he saw now. The books were radiating the energy of their owner, much in the same way that he expected Sora was doing to any dragons currently present in the temple. He, um, hoped none of the attendants would notice that.

There didn’t actually seem to be any attendants now that he had the presence of mind to check, which was unexpected to say the least. Who had welcomed them in if there was no one here?

He guessed it didn’t matter, as long as they were careful around this dragon’s hoard while inside.

“Man, Traverse Town has got such cool stuff!” Sora exclaimed as he rubbed his hands together in front of the brazier. “I’ve never seen a temple like this in real life. Er, I don’t even think there are any back on the islands, come to think of it.”

Riku shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably.

“There are some that exist there. Just smaller. And definitely not as elaborate.” He noted.

As a change of pace from the bustling city, the only noise within the temple now was the flickering of fire. Riku felt himself become calm when he watched the blue and purple dance in the nonexistent breeze. He knew it was likely meant to do that, as an offering for dragonkind to protect the establishment from harm. Thinking about it influencing him made him uncomfortable. He turned away.

Sora got a little closer to the fire, still cold. “Doesn’t it look like the ones in our storybooks? Guess those old drawings actually got something right for a change.”

He snorted. “For a change?”

“I told you, they never get the dragons right!” The prince continued. “Real dragons are beautiful and powerful. Books always portray them as monsters, but that just isn’t correct. You can fight me on that.”

Riku wasn’t entirely sure what to say in response. He personally had a complicated relationship with the negative stereotypes of his species, because, while he agreed that they weren’t ugly, and also weren’t inherently bad, there were plenty of issues with teaching humans that they were friendly. Humans in general were too weak to withstand the anger of the clans, and if one got into the wrong place at the wrong time… it would end badly for them. That aside, he simply didn’t know what to do with Sora referring to him as beautiful and powerful, even if it was indirectly.

“I mean, just look at them.” Sora elaborated, gesturing to the statues all around them. “Could you imagine having wings like that?”

Yes. He could.

Sora’s eyes seemed to sparkle with the firelight. “They’re so pretty.”

…Nope, that wasn’t something that he heard. Riku must’ve been spinning off into some deep corner of his subconscious again if he was hearing Sora calling him _beautiful_ and _pretty_ and all those other descriptors that were impossible to associate with him. Next thing he knew, Sora was going to waltz up and kiss him like it was one of his stupid idle daydreams. As if that would ever happen.

_Could it?_ Riku thought.

No, and thinking so was unrealistic and stupid. Surely Sora’s standards were better than that.

“You know, I actually had a dream about dragons not too long ago,” Sora mused after a small lull in their conversation, looking up to see the jade eyes of the ocean king. “This huge one was asking me something that I _think_ was related to an older recurring dream… oh, and you were there too.”

Riku cleared his throat. “That so?”

“Yeah,” He answered quietly, seemingly unaware of Riku’s sudden stiffness.

Before Riku could think of something to say that wouldn’t sound dismissive, Sora rendered the worry null. He stretched out, yawning, and then withdrew into himself to shiver more.

“Well, anyway, I’m glad that this place is open. The city is so much colder than I thought it’d be.” Sora complained.

His best friend launched into a description of how icy his hands and feet were as he attempted to get even closer to the fire. Riku was relieved that he wouldn’t have to change the subject now— at least he was practiced with taking care of Sora, and knew how to regain his footing in the conversation from here. This wasn’t the horrifying territory of being called pretty or the dread of Sora remembering the meeting with Riku’s grandfather; all he had to do was find an extra layer for him to wear and his job would be finished.

Hm. He guessed he could sacrifice his cloak for this, since his newer, tighter bandages should be enough to hide his wings for now.

“Of course you’re cold.” He smirked.

Riku felt the ridiculous urge to hug him close, remembering how he used to do that for him when they were very little. Sora used to huddle up to him like a penguin whenever he was cold. It would confuse him, since Riku’s skin was always cool to touch… but it seemed to help him anyway, so he’d let it happen without incident for the most part. It’d been a long time since Riku’d last given him a hug. Like, a purposeful hug, for comfort or anything of that like. Would it be as nice as it had been back then?

Well, Sora was certainly much older and bigger, so he knew it wouldn’t be exactly the same. Maybe he would still fit right under his chin like he used to, or maybe he wouldn’t. He wondered what it would feel like to wrap his arms around Sora’s waist and melt into him. Would he be as soft as he looked?

The thought of finding out sent his tired heart skipping in anticipation for something that he didn’t quite understand.

“H-Hey, don’t get all high and mighty just because you could stand out in a blizzard naked.” Sora whined, jabbing a finger at Riku’s chest.

Ignoring Sora’s increasingly stuttered words, Riku grunted a vague response and went to unhook his weapon straps so he could give the prince his cloak. It felt weird without the weight cutting into his tightly folded wings.

Sora started to freak out when he heard the buckle clatter on the floor, spinning around to frantically wave his arms. “I didn’t mean you _should_ get naked!”

He was lucky that his face was hidden by the winter cloak that he was in the middle of pulling off, because he was sure that whatever it looked like could’ve been mistaken for the first sunrise Traverse Town had ever seen.

“Don’t say that so loud.” Riku hissed. “We’re in a temple.”

“I’m not the one stripping here!”

“Stars!” Riku cursed, reaching out his still perfectly covered arms to slap a hand over Sora’s mouth. “I’m not stripping, idiot, I was going to offer you my cloak.”

There was a second of silence between them that was only interrupted by the simmering fire. Riku’s eyebrows drew together as he started to get the feeling that he was about to regret what he’d done.

Making solid eye contact, Sora grabbed Riku’s wrist, pulled the offending hand a centimeter away, and licked a stripe right up his palm.

It didn’t have the same effect that it used to when they were little, exactly. Riku didn’t feel like he wanted to gag and run his hands under water. Instead, he felt an odd electric jolt run up his spine, bursting into tides of warmth that simmered in his chest and tuned to magma in his stomach. He shuddered.

Despite the weirdly pleasant fluttering making it difficult to think, Riku wrenched his hand back to wipe it on his pants like he always did. “You’re gross.”

He used his other hand to shove his cloak at Sora. Then he dropped down to the floor to reequip his swords and knives, trying his hardest to force his mind away from whatever’d just happened.

Only a few minutes later, the two of them were turning around to leave the temple again, Sora now clad in Riku’s oversized garment of hide and fur. Riku was very firmly tuning out whatever Sora was saying in defense of his actions as they walked. Firstly, he’d already made the decision that he wouldn’t allow himself to relive that moment until the absolute darkest and loneliest hours of the night rolled around- and that was difficult to do with Sora babbling something about how his hand tasted, as if that had any relevance- and secondly, his mind was racing with too many things at once for him to bother paying attention. He felt like he was going crazy.

It had to be the city. Riku couldn’t handle so much light magic being around him all at once, couldn’t handle how many people were potential threats to his charge, couldn’t handle how vulnerable he felt now that there was one less layer between his wings and permanent exile. He _definitely_ couldn’t handle his heartache on top of all of that.

The jade eyes of his dragon family burned on every inch of him, seeming to judge him for his lack of courage. Against his back was the intense pulse of the temple’s magic. Beside him was the warmer glow of Sora, who had many layers of magic radiating from him, some being his own, and others belonging to Riku. He sensed the remnants of protection spells and the minor charms that he held as Riku’s hoard. And when he did, he felt just as ashamed as he was sure the dragons were trying to make him.

He was Sora’s protector. It was Riku’s duty to keep Sora’s best interests at heart, no matter how hard it was for him to assimilate into human society. If that was what it took to keep him happy and safe.

_I’ll be back here before we leave town,_ Riku promised, watching from the entrance at Sora cartwheeling through the empty street. He was giggling and yelling to him about how comfortable the cloak was.

The dragon who’d been watching them from the ceiling snorted in acknowledgement.

This was going to be one long trip.

\---

“That’s it. I’m gonna start forcing you to take baths like how Aqua and I used to do when you were a kid. With _soap._ ” Ventus threatened, digging his fist into the side of Riku’s head. 

“Wh- I bathe! I’m not an animal!”

Sora snickered, deciding to mess with them a little bit despite knowing fully well that Ventus was the one in the wrong. “I bribe him to wash the same way that he bribes me to brush my hair. We get it done at _least_ every other day.”

Retching, Ventus shook his head furiously. “Both of you are disgusting!”

As Riku commented that no, he didn’t need to be bribed to shower, and yes, he agreed that Sora should be combing his spiky mess that he called hair much more frequently than he currently did, Ventus fisted his hands in both of their collars and shoved them through the lobby of the hotel that they were to be staying in.

“I don’t wanna hear anything from either of you two until you’ve been in the washroom,” He commanded gruffly. “You must be disgusting after wandering the city for an entire damn day! Sora’s probably been touching everything he’s come across, and you, Riku, I bet you’ve been fighting everything of the same variety if your display at the jeweler’s was anything to go off of.”

Sora still didn’t know exactly what’d happened in there, even though he’d been watching Ventus chew Riku out for it for the past twenty minutes or so until he’d decided to heckle the two of them into joining him in the bathhouse. The most probable guess was that Riku drew his sword inside or growled at a customer. He kinda wished he’d been there to watch it go down, just so that he could see the person’s face when they realized his best friend had weapons, fangs, and the most intimidating gaze known to mankind all in one heart-stopping package.

But aside from his personal entertainment value, the real reason why he wished he knew what was going on was so that he could have a little context as to why his parents seemed so agitated while they were finalizing sleeping arrangements with the owners of the building. They’d seemed much more exasperated with Riku than usual when the two of them had finally wandered back to their group.

His parents had indicated that they were mainly just mad that the two of them had been gone for so long without adult supervision. Riku argued that his entire job description was to be Sora’s guardian for such things, and however miffed they were about it, neither of the kings were quite able to punish Riku for fulfilling the role that they paid him to do. Ruffling Sora’s hair, they insisted that Riku at least keep him in areas where many people could see him in case he was kidnapped again.

_Again?_ He’d asked Ventus, who was a horrible liar. The man pretended not to hear him.

Of course, Riku disagreed with their methods, as per usual. It was the less populated routes that were safer in his opinion. He made sure that they knew it, too, saying that it was easier to sense hostile magic when he wasn’t surrounded by a hundred unique signatures from every direction at once.

_Fine,_ the kings conceded, waving him off so they could finish negotiating room and board prices. It was senseless to argue against a Riku who’d made up his mind.

And then Ventus had caught them before they could slip into some small corner of the room to chat, giving Riku every ounce of hell he could muster for whatever it was that he’d done to the jewelry store that morning.

The thing he did must’ve been something a little more daring than usual, because he and Riku had spent the day going through as many stores as possible to throw off any and all soldiers that were sent to investigate the “dark presence that was threatening their shopping district”. To Sora, it was hilarious that the city guards referred to him like that whenever he caught them muttering at the street corners. If they could see him laughing, smiling, watching Sora run around with that little grin on his face, then they would realize that he was basically just a caring and somewhat bite-y cat, one who for the most part didn’t bother anyone unless they bothered him or Sora first.

Luckily, not many people had bothered them while they were looking around today. It was probably thanks to his necklace being lost in the fluffy fur of Riku’s cloak, and if he had to take a guess, his earrings were also likely being covered by his hair falling just so. He wasn’t complaining about it though! Getting to know the city was much more interesting and fun as a civilian than it had been as a prince, or if nothing else, it was quieter.

Sora’d gotten his obligatory taste-testing of the local cuisine finished and out of the way before anyone could stop him, which was what he was the happiest about. Normally Riku wouldn’t have let him shell out any of his money for something so stupid, but his puppy eyes were a powerful thing, and he knew exactly what tone of voice to take in order to get Riku to agree to a little bit of fun. (He always complained that he was required to follow Sora’s commands by law— Sora knew that it had much more to do with the fact that Riku didn’t like to see him disappointed.) It was a wonderful array of neon-colored drinks served with pastries of all varieties that even Riku was amazed by. He’d practically caught Riku drooling over the shield cookies that he bought for them to share, the happy groan that he gave upon biting into one imprinting itself into Sora’s memory for the rest of eternity.

As for Riku, who was more reserved about his spending, he’d only bought practical things for himself no matter how many amazing stores they ran through during their escape from law enforcement. He got new polish for his blades at Sora’s prompting to buy _something._ Sora would have to come by the shopping districts by himself some other time so he could buy those trench knives that Riku so obviously wanted without him protesting that he hadn’t done anything worthy of treating himself.

For whatever it was worth to Sora, he believed that Riku deserved anything that he wanted just by virtue of being so cute and flustered whenever he got it. No one in their right mind would be asking Sora’s opinion on that, though. He was far too biased.

They’d explored to their hearts’ content until Riku got a little too anxious to stay out in public for much longer. And then, as if on cue, there was the ringing of the belltower that signaled the end of normal waking hours. The guards at the borders of the city confirmed that the sky outside their walls had darkened to match their night sky’s brilliance, and with the loud tolls ringing over the streets, Riku’d put one hand on Sora’s shoulder and steered him towards the magical signatures of his parents now in District 2.

So that was where Sora found himself at present: being pushed around by Ventus after the absolutely draining process of checking into the hotel as royalty. There were far too many passersby who would recognize the kings and try to talk to them, or unexpectedly, jump up when they caught a glimpse of Sora’s piercings (more visible in the harsh electric lighting) and demand to see his matching necklace to prove he was really the prince. He didn’t have much of an issue showing people if they asked, reaching into his collar to unveil the skin-warmed pendant. Rather, the problem was that some of them got a little violent in demanding their answers. The line was definitely at someone trying to put their hand down his borrowed cloak to grab it themselves, which resulted in Riku bursting into a storm of raging darkness that almost knocked out a bellhop.

Maybe that was why his parents had been all fidgety, he reasoned to himself. Anyone would be after something as migraine-inducing as that.

The staff had offered the kings and everyone else from the Destiny Islands usage of the sentō while their rooms and meals were being prepared, specially cleared out so that they wouldn’t be harassed by other hotel guests while trying to take a bath. Most everyone accepted with gusto. Especially Ventus, who made it clear that he was tired of washing off with water magic on the deck of their ship, and was trying his hardest to convince the both of them to get in while the going was good now that he was done scolding his little brother for being a violent dumbass.

“C’mon, I’m _begging_ you to take a bath,” He said, clasping his hands together in plea. “We’ve been on a boat for a week without running water. You smell like a fucking goat.”

“I do _not!_ ” Riku hissed.

Angrily, Riku turned his back to his brother and insisted that he was going to wait until everyone was finished, since he really, really hated to be seen undressed in any capacity. Despite Ven being desperate to get at least one of them in before he had to go back to the ship to grab something he forgot in his cabin, Sora gave an apologetic shrug and explained that he would rather not take a bath with a bunch of people that he didn’t know all at once. He’d never been around people that much to begin with, and starting out his experiences socializing in a public bath sounded like a… pretty bad idea all around.

Instead of joining the crew in the sentō, he and Riku stood around in the lobby for another half an hour to wait. Riku’s aura of anger and mercilessness towards anyone who even looked at Sora managed to keep them alone for the most part, and in the case that it didn’t work, Sora dealt with them as politely as he could. His friend grunted that he was too nice when explaining that he would rather not show them “the other places that the prince was known to have freckles”. (He didn’t understand why they chose to phrase it so oddly. He only had freckles on his face, shoulders, and back, regardless of what they seemed to think.)

If it was up to Riku, he knew, each and every one of them would have been tossed right through the wall for daring to ask about something so personal. While he was very much tempted to agree, he couldn’t blame them just for being curious about a semi-public figure. There were certainly worse crimes to commit than that.

So they waited.

The time went by pretty slowly. However nice it was to be outside of his room, in a new place- new country, even- Sora had never been fond of sitting still without something to occupy his hands. He counted the glowing neon lights on the ceiling a million times through to keep himself from simply keeling over of boredom.

Eventually, to his relief, his parents and the rest of their entourage wandered back into the lobby to help the hotel staff with the last of their things, and he was able to make a quick bow to Riku and run to the changing room to get undressed. Riku hesitated as Sora was getting up.

He asked if Sora would be okay by himself, the words causing both of them to redden and turn away the second they left his tongue. Riku seemed to realize that there wasn’t much he could do to help unless he planned to join him.

“I-I think I’ll be fine. Give me ten minutes, and then you can have your turn, okay?” He stuttered. Then he shut the door carefully behind him.

\---

Riku was thoroughly convinced that his sister was out to get him.

No, seriously, he wasn’t kidding. It was almost a certainty, what with the way that she was licking the scales on her foreleg like how a kitten did to groom itself after a long day of knocking anything and everything off of shelves for the fun of it. He glared at her reflection in the mirror and sank a little bit lower into the water.

“You did that on purpose,” Riku accused.

_All I did was tell you that the prince was finished with his bath._ The dragon snickered, the sound echoing in the acoustics of the room. _How was I supposed to know that you wanted him to be dressed first?_

“Common sense!” He barked, hiding his still-warm face in his hands. “I’m never going to get that out of my head now…”

Riku was forever going to be haunted by all that warm brown skin dripping with water, the only things covering him being the silver necklace around his throat and a towel that he’d been using to muss up his hair into its proper spiky shape. It was embarrassing just how fast his own skin had gone from pale white to stark red at the sight, his heart speeding up to levels that would probably kill most mortals in the span of a blink.

_Is that not a good thing?_ His sister asked with an obviously faked innocence. _You seemed to have enjoyed it._

He sputtered, wanting to defend but having nothing to refute it with. “I don’t know how you else you expected me to react; I’ve been in love with the bastard since I was, like, nine! Of course I think he’s gorgeous!”

The room was filled by the harsh noises he’d come to associate with her laughter. It made him feel furious, knowing now that she absolutely had done it to fluster him.

_And you denied him being your Khura,_ she purred in amusement.

“Augh!” He groaned miserably, throwing his head back as he submerged himself completely in the water. His wings scraped the sides of the pool and dragged against them when he kicked back up to the surface.

It wasn’t fair. Normal kids didn’t have their magical dragon siblings dunk on them for no good reason, and boy did he envy that. It was going to take weeks _at least_ to stop thinking about how Sora’s mouth had fallen open in surprise, eyeing him up and down when he’d been wearing nothing but his bandages. He swore it was the most awkward interaction of his entire life and he desperately wished that someone would give him a concussion just to forget about it faster.

There was no way that Sora didn’t see how weird he looked when he wasn’t wearing seven or so layers of armor— Riku was even paler than usual on his stomach and thighs, and his body was marred throughout by unsightly thin scars. He’d never wanted the prince to see him like that. A body covered in his past failures in battle was nothing to brag about, especially once he’d laid eyes on Sora and seen just how humans were _supposed_ to look, how lovely and beautiful a human body could be.

Sora’s body was the physical incarnation of the inexplicable warmth felt upon viewing a patch of rainbow sunlight on a windowsill. He was soft and round everywhere that Riku was angular, having adorably plush thighs and full hips that could put Riku’s box-like figure to shame. And they very much did so. Sora made his heart want to melt right out of his chest, and the combination of his wonderfully blue eyes, curves sweeter than honey, and charming taches de rousseur up and down his limbs melted him even more. There was very little left of him to even care about his own mediocre body being on display by the time he’d come to his senses. Simply put, Sora was a work of art.

Next to something so heartbreakingly beautiful, Riku felt like inadequate garbage. His body was made to be divine. It lacked any kind of physical imperfections aside from scars and sun exposure, meaning that his whole body was perfectly symmetrical, and had next to no deviations from whatever template Maleficent had envisioned for him when he was being created. Changeling bodies were meant to last for potential eternities, being the absolute physical prime of whatever species that they were chosen to resemble. Riku wholeheartedly felt that it wasn’t worth it. He was strong and fit, theoretically what humans could look like with a lot of training… but he didn’t look like a normal human, didn’t look like Sora, and that was almost enough to make him want to cry out of frustration.

It didn’t even matter that Riku took horrible care of himself. He never slept, hardly ate, overtrained, and barely ever bothered to take his injuries seriously, and yet, he was still exactly the same as he would’ve been if he hadn’t done all of those things. The black circles under his eyes were basically just for show. Riku’s body wasn’t capable of being hurt by him, because it was too _perfect,_ too close to how he was meant to be in the eyes of the universe.

He wished that he could have even one of the things that Sora told him he hated about himself. Sora was everything he wished he could be.

Not for the first time, Riku was struck with the desire to tell Sora all of this. To find him and to tell him just how amazing he was by pressing the words into his skin with a mess of kisses, one for everything that he loved about him, two for every freckle, three to bless his hands and his forehead, and as many on his lips as he could handle before falling apart.

_I’ve never met a changeling who wanted to be human as much as you do._ His sister scoffed, rolling her eyes at his dramatics. _I promise you that humans won’t mind your otherworldly qualities as much as you think they will._

“Stop trying to read my mind.” Riku snapped. “If I have something to say to you, I’ll say it.”

She looked unimpressed.

_Oh, yes, I’ll just leave the emotional maturity up to the fifteen-year-old changeling boy and wait for him to tell me that he’s hurting inside._

Riku didn’t have to take this abuse, so he wouldn’t. He submerged himself entirely in the water and remained there until he physically could not hold his breath any longer. When he breached the surface again, he noticed that the dragon had left her place in the mirror, and was now lazily dipping her tail in the pool as she waited for him.

There were no movements or questions for a good five minutes of silently challenging each other to give in first. Riku began to get uneasy, remembering that their time allotment for the sentō would only last until seven thirty on the dot. He sighed resignedly.

“Why won’t you just leave, Fryja?” He mumbled.

_I want to know why you won’t let yourself near him,_ she asked in lieu of an answer. _The choice is more than only the prince’s to make, you know. You are allowed to fall in love. You are allowed to want him, regardless of what he personally chooses._

Gods, not this again.

“I can’t meet him halfway to his grave.” Riku said firmly. “What I want doesn’t matter. What I want from him… _can’t_ matter.”

Fryja stirred her tail idly through the water. _But Maleficent’s scheme has nothing to do, really, with what you two feel for each other, except in fine print. The problem is whether or not you successfully take his heart. Technically, you could be strangers and still kill him, or be madly in love and still kill him. You might as well do what makes you happy._

If only it were that simple. He didn’t really want to debate the intricacies of loyalty, love, and betrayal while on a time limit, so he resorted to the most faithful argument in his repertoire.

“Well he doesn’t love me back, so it’s not like it’ll do any good regardless.”

_We’ll see about that._ She answered.

Fryja disappeared into a cloud of icy mist, and Riku got out of the water, drying off his wings with a few hard flaps so he could wrap them back up to his back.

Whatever. She didn’t know what she was talking about.

\---

“No,” Riku protested weakly, his voice uncharacteristically small. “N-No, I’m not prepared to deal with this.”

Ventus crossed his arms and gave him his stern older brother look that’d only sharpened with age. Again, he gestured to the door of the room that Riku was supposed to stay in. “Well, this is the room that the kings paid for, so you’re going in there.” He answered.

Riku’s stomach churned unpleasantly just looking at it. Would he- would he _really-_

Ventus nudged him impatiently.

The changeling picked up the sack of clothes that he’d brought from the ship, ambling inside like he was about to fall over and die from the act of passing the doorframe. Everything that he laid eyes on in the room made him feel even worse.

Red bedsheets, red walls, red carpets, all bracketed by shining gold trim. It made him want to puke, but not really because it was ugly— because, like everything in his terrible, awful, shitty life, it was covered in images of dragons. They were everywhere, including on a scroll above the bed, which Riku was sure he wouldn’t forget about when he went to lay down for the evening. He was probably going to remain awake for every single damn night they’d be staying here. How could he close his eyes, surrounded by so many of his cousins?

Not exactly that they were all sentient, of course, just that dragons liked to inhabit depictions of themselves, and this was basically an invitation for any of them ( _Fryja_ ) to come and watch him like a cricket in a cage.

This wasn’t good. If Riku had known that he was going to be staying in here, then he probably would’ve attempted sleep within the past few days instead of saving it for now. He could feel that his body would only last a few more hours as it was. No matter how hard he tried for the rest of their time in the city, he’d end up sleeping here at least once. There was no avoiding it. Riku wanted to bash his brains out.

Flopping down on the bed, he gave a halfhearted scream into the pillow that he could hear Ventus laughing at as he moved to go back to his own room across the hall.

“Remember to leave room for Sora!” Ven called jovially behind him. “You guys are supposed to share!”

Riku felt his world shatter as soon as he realized what his brother had just said. Surely that wasn’t true, and Ventus was just… _joking._

It had to be a joke. Right? It was a joke.

But it wasn’t, because Sora walked through the door of the room a few minutes later with King Cloud standing behind him. The king made a few slightly stiff comments about how much red there was in the room, which Sora laughed at to be polite, and then the two of them were alone.

With one bed.

Just one.

His face turned red for what felt like the fortieth time that day as he scrambled off the mattress, tripping over his feet to land in a pile on the ground.

“I-I call dibs on the floor.” Riku coughed.

Sora’s gentle hands helped to pull him up, and though the prince was avoiding his eyes, his voice was kind and sincere when he said “It’s okay, Riku. I don’t mind sharing.”

He had to suppress an honest-to-gods whimper at the lingering feel of Sora’s hands on him.

The two of them got ready for bed slowly, both of them remembering all the times that they’d slept in the same bed before when they were little. It was different now. Very different, he thought, grimacing when he realized that he’d have to sleep facing towards Sora in order to keep his wings as hidden as possible, and grimacing even more when he remembered that that meant he’d be able to see Sora’s face the whole time. He’d be close. Too close.

(Too far?)

Riku tried _very_ hard to keep his eyes trained on the floor when he heard him changing into his nightclothes, making sure to crush every single dragon on the rug under his feet as he padded to the bed that’d be servicing as his executioner for the evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey not to be needy or anything but could you guys give me your opinions on the romantic scenes? do they fall flat or am I doing okay at it???


	18. Bound Six Ways to Sunday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy everybody! Please ignore the fact that I've taken 17 days to update or I will cry. Thank you. I've been in a little bit of a mental health rut lately, so it was hard to get the chapter written and edited on time for my usual updates. I'll try to get it back on track as soon as possible! 
> 
> thanks to everybody who's read this shit and put up with me for so damn long. damn you guys are troopers. I love you <33333333333

For as long as it’d been since the two of them had shared a bed together, it was still such a familiar feeling that Riku found himself reaching instinctively for Sora’s hand after the prince had settled under the covers with him.

It occurred to him a mere second before grabbing hold that he wasn’t having a sleepover like they had when they were kids. He was older, a knight. The standards regarding his conduct were much higher than they’d ever been, even if there was no one here to call him out on it— and _no,_ it wasn’t because he was scared.

Who would be scared to touch Sora of all people? He was nothing but sunshine and kindness. Nothing would happen if he took his hand, he was certain of that.

That was to say, except for his very possible death, which would lead to the unbalance and eventual destruction of the universe as they knew it. Riku sighed. His fingers curled as he withdrew slightly, and he settled his fist only a few inches away from where he’d almost put it the first time. Sora shifted a little in response. Then, the two of them were staring up at the ceiling together, silent.

Riku hated sleeping on his back. It hurt to pin his wings down like that on top of everything he already put them through, and as he grumbled about it in his head, he mourned for how sore he was going to be the next time that he found a moment to stretch them out again.

He’d usually be doing that for the next five or six hours, but… you know.

A tentative voice split the quiet. “Riku?”

Riku’s eyes drifted over to where he lay. Sora was startlingly close, as one should be when sharing a bed, he supposed, though it made his heart jump and stutter in his chest.

He saw the blue that he loved so well so _close_ to him.

“Yeah?”

There were no sounds in the room besides the two of them. The hotel was almost entirely mute, with no creaking floorboards or voices drifting in from the other rooms down the hall, and Riku didn’t know why their whispers felt like they were loud enough to knock down the building.

Sora coughed into his fist once, settling a little awkwardly. “I have something that I need to tell you, I think.”

“Uh,” Riku muttered. “Go ahead.”

That was clearly the most eloquent thing he’d ever said. Riku cringed internally as he shifted to face him, unable to stifle a huff of relief when his wings were released from pressure. At least it wasn’t a _new_ thing to embarrass himself in front of Sora.

_Fates have mercy,_ he thought when he realized that the prince was even closer now. He could feel the sweat developing already.

“Heh, well. Um.” Sora swallowed, shifting his eyes down and then back up. “It’s a little harder to say than I thought it would be.”

“Take your time.”

And Sora did. For several attempts, Sora kept backing down at the last second, making this sound that Riku recognized as his _I’m overwhelmed_ signal. It wasn’t particularly emphasized, just enough to notice. Riku hummed back in a deep and even tone. They turned it into a little back and forth of humming sounds, until Sora giggled, commenting that he was ready to say his piece.

“So, you’re not allowed to make fun of me for this, okay?” He requested. “I know it’s gonna sound a little weird. I just… I really have to say it.” As Riku nodded, Sora cleared his throat to begin.

Just to be annoying, Riku exaggeratedly breathed in the second that Sora tried to talk. He earned a delightful smack on the shoulder for his trouble.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna say this to _you,_ you jerk _._ ” The prince complained.

Riku’s laughter halted. The words sounded a bit too much like they were the preface to something that he’d only read about in novels, something that he would do anything to experience in real life just as much as he would do everything within his power to make sure he never did. Surely he was jumping to conclusions, though, so Riku forced himself to be serious and listen, ignoring how his head was all of a sudden worryingly light.

After a second, Sora tried again. “Do you remember that time that I accidentally cut you, and you passed out in the washroom a few days later from the pain?”

_What?_

“...Sure I do. But where did _that_ come from?” He said, raising an eyebrow.

Sora ignored the question. “You remember how I broke down the door and stuff?” Riku nodded, because obviously he remembered it. His memory of that day was near perfect.

His heart beat fast as Sora moved closer yet again. He was reminded of how he used to do the same when they were kids, always clinging to him, tapping him, nudging him, cuddling him, petting his hair, or pulling him under the covers to show him the latest trick he learned to do with his light magic. He didn’t know how he’d ever dealt with it. If Sora were to do the same thing now, he’d be done for.

“I certainly remember you knocking me out with sleep magic every night for the next two weeks after that.” Riku countered. It definitely hadn’t been the best time of his life, even though he knew that Sora’s intentions had only been pure.

“You needed it.” Sora replied guiltlessly.

“Maybe so.”

The prince rolled his eyes. “Well, whatever. That isn’t why I brought it up; I only mentioned it because I wanted to tell you about how I was feeling.” He said as he crossed his arms over the covers. “Because that was a time that I was really worried about you.”

Riku squinted. He wasn’t sure where this was going anymore.

Sora put a hand over his heart. “When you were in pain- no, when you _are_ in pain- it hurts me.”

The hand on his chest moved to be placed, carefully, gently, onto Riku’s. Riku stiffened and averted his eyes somewhere else. He knew what Sora was going to ask, so instead of waiting for the inevitable question of his lack of pulse, he pulled down his shirt collar to reveal the start of his bandages.

Sora’s concern faded into a softer look. _Oh,_ the prince mouthed softly, as though he’d completely forgotten they were there.

His bandages were far too thick and sturdy to let something as insignificant as a heartbeat be felt through their folds. Nevertheless, Sora seemed to decide that it was unimportant, splaying out his fingers over Riku’s chest as far as he could manage anyway.

“It’s like my heart calls out to yours” Sora murmured. “And I know that yours calls out to mine. When you’re hurt, I… I don’t really know what to do with myself. I listen and I hear you calling for me, and all I want to do is make sure you’re okay.”

It took a lot of effort for Riku not to hide his face. He’d never been very good at accepting affection.

“Then, when you’re happy, I feel like I can do anything.”

Deep blue, so godsdamned blue. Glittering blue that made him feel low on oxygen. He couldn’t even force himself to think of anything else. The colors washed over him like the ocean, tossing him around in the unapologetic surf, and Sora smiled this way that was so _unfair,_ so sweet that he felt his bones immediately turn to jelly. He wanted to capture that smile between his lips.

“I keep getting this urge to make you happy all the time!” Sora admitted, a hint of color appearing on his cheeks. “Because… I love seeing you that way. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

Riku felt the urge to shy away from his hand, but he couldn’t move. His limbs were utterly useless as long as he was being touched like this.

_Don’t purr. For the stars’ sakes don’t fucking purr,_ he begged himself silently.

The prince gave a sheepish chuckle. “Am I making sense so far? I really hope I don’t sound stupid over here.”

Incredibly cheesy? Yes. Adorable? Double yes. Going to make Riku swoon if he kept it going in this direction? Possibly. Stupid? No.

“You don’t sound stupid.” Riku assured. His tongue was weirdly heavy in his mouth. “I just don’t really know where you’re going with all of this.”

“Well, do you feel it too?”

“Huh?”

Sora grabbed ahold of one of Riku’s hands, removing it only a moment from where it’d been on Riku’s chest. He placed it over his own heartbeat.

“I’m not saying you _have_ to. But do you? You know,” He said softly. “Feel my heart?”

There was a small but sure rhythm underneath his fingers now, and as Sora returned his hand to Riku’s chest, he realized the odd intimacy of the moment. He ignored the blush that overtook him and tried to puzzle out what it meant.

Sora wasn’t usually one for analogies. He must’ve meant something more literal than what it sounded like, as in, he was asking if Riku could hear his heart calling to him when he was hurt or injured as well.

The short answer was _duh._

Their connection as dragon and hoard (whether or not Sora was aware of it) resulted in Riku knowing a lot of things about Sora that humans typically wouldn’t be privy to. He could tell when he was feeling threatened, if he was contented, could tell how much magic he had in, on, or around him at any given point in time, and was usually able to guess if he was hungry, thirsty, hurt, or tired without needing to ask. So, yes. Of course he could. Though, really, he knew that the question both could and could not be answered so simply.

That was the long answer, which was also yes, just specifically because Riku loved him.

Riku nodded affirmatively. “I do.”

“Then you know how I feel.” Sora continued. “You’re my favorite person in the whole wide world, and I care about you more than anything. It’s like— our hearts are two halves of a whole. I wouldn’t be complete without you beside me.”

_I wouldn’t either,_ Riku thought as he gazed helplessly into Sora’s eyes.

There was a moment in which neither of them said anything. They stayed with their hands poised over each other’s chests, Riku’s heart starting to beat a little bit harder.

Sora hesitated slightly, uncharacteristically shy. “So I wanted to ask you… if you would consider…”

One, two, three more beats.

Sora darted forward and wrapped his arms around Riku’s shoulders, crushing Riku’s arm between them. Riku shuddered at the contact before his brain could even catch up to what was happening.

“…Being my best friend forever!” He yelped, burying his face into Riku’s neck.

The first thing to happen was that Riku burst into darkness, although he reformed almost immediately, determined to stay corporeal for this. A blush covered his face.

“Sora, we’re already best friends,” He murmured. “What does that mean?”

“It’s like best friends, but forever. And maybe I can hold your hand sometimes?” Sora had the gall to sound endearingly nervous about it. “I-I’m not really sure.”

_“You’re not sure.”_ Riku repeated incredulously.

This was going to give him a migraine. Wrenching his arm out from between them, Riku moved his hand up to Sora’s face and flicked him in the forehead.

“You can literally hold my hand whenever you want to.”

“But you always freak out!” Sora retorted.

If only he could understand why. Riku wanted to put his head in his hands, so incredibly tired of bearing such potent feelings. Sometimes they felt like a hinderance more than a help or a motivation. Caring for someone this much- especially for someone as adorably inept as Sora- was work. It was painful.

Painful just as much as it was rewarding.

Riku sighed. “Then tell me to suck it up. C’mon stupid, you’re the _prince._ I have to do anything you ask of me, even if it’s dumb.”

Sora mumbled angrily in lieu of response. Leaning upwards, he bonked his head against Riku’s to express his displeasure. It didn’t hurt. But now they were very, very, _very_ close.

“You know what? Fine,” Sora said as he moved in just the slightest distance more. The feeling of very soft lips pressed into his cheek, and Riku’s heart absolutely _rocketed_ in his chest. “Deal with that. And don’t call me stupid, stupid.”

Sora rolled over to face away from him, leaving Riku to stare at his back in disbelief. Or more than that, he was in shock. Paralysis. He wanted to combust into darkness again. He wanted to burn himself down to the ground.

“I’m going to sleep. This was a bad idea anyway.” The prince grumbled.

What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to do? Was there a manual for situations like this? He was pretty sure there wasn’t. Riku didn’t remember reading anything like this in the knights’ code, and he’d read it hundreds if not thousands of times since he was a child. There was no prerecorded way to deal with the complexities of relationships, platonic or otherwise. Not to his knowledge…

The two of them settled into complete silence, and after many long minutes of hesitation, Riku concluded that Sora seemed to have nothing else to say to him. Sora’s breathing had evened out to gentle puffs of air by the time that he came up with his answer.

“Well, if it means that much to you, I’ll be glad to accept your declaration of friendship.” He whispered to him. Sora sniffed and murmured his thanks.

As the both of them drifted into a fitful sleep, they wondered why that felt like a loss instead of a victory.

\---

Sora’s eyes snapped open exactly as the eighth bell of the morning was ringing over the city. It was signaling that the early hours of the marketplace had finally begun— through the paper screens of the room, the prince could see green, pink, blue, and a myriad of other colors that swirled throughout the area as the lamps were turned on to form their artificial daylight.

He smiled at it absently, wondering what it would look like without the screen in the way.

For now, he let his eyes trace the way that the glow cast patterns all over the rug of the room, causing the gold dragons on the floor to shine with so many other colors that they were almost hard to look at. Blue light crept over the carpet all the way to the edge of the bed and turned the filament purple wherever it touched. The city lights weren’t enough yet to reach where Sora’s head lay, so he remained in darkness, observing the kaleidoscope of the room in front of him.

Aside from the slowly accumulating lights on the ground, there wasn’t much to look at. There really wasn’t a lot of other stuff in here; just a wooden stand across from the bed where Riku had retired his weapons (how did he even fit that many on his person??) and a few pegs on the wall to hold hats or cloaks. Riku’s cloak was hanging carelessly from one of them, a clear sign that it wasn’t Riku who’d hung it.

Sora added it to the list of things he needed to take care of once he got out of bed. Not yet, ‘cause he was still too comfortable to move.

About fifteen or so minutes were spent drifting in and out of consciousness as he cuddled into the comfortable weight of the blankets around him. In a city where the sun didn’t rise, nobody could blame him for feeling a little adverse to waking up quickly, his body protesting that it was still time for sleep. He wasn’t as driven as Riku was to get to his responsibilities. When sleep called to him, he fell into it easily, until something occurred to him that he couldn’t put out of his mind for long enough to drift off.

_Wait a minute,_ he thought groggily. _My side feels suspiciously heavy._

What he met with upon opening his eyes again was Riku, who was looking incredibly divorced from his usual image of stoicism, eyes closed and arms slung around Sora’s body like it was the most natural thing in the world. Everywhere that Riku was touching felt unbelievably warm. The cooling sensation that was typical of his friend’s skin had been overpowered at some time during the night, presumably from being pressed up against him for so long, and he seemed to be completely unaware of their predicament. Otherwise, this would not have been happening at all.

_Oh geez._

Sora instantaneously grew lightheaded. The sleep that’d been dragging him down all but disappeared, replaced by a hyper sort of energy that made him all too aware of every single place that the two of them were connected.

Experimentally, Sora tried to pull away, but was stopped by Riku’s arms suddenly curling tighter around him. Riku muttered something unintelligible into Sora’s ear. It was just a half-formed word, barely considered to be speech, yet Sora jolted when he heard it, because the hot breath ghosting over his ear made his heart stutter something fierce.

Clearly still fast asleep, Riku maneuvered them so that he and Sora were completely chest to chest and nuzzled into him like he was an oversized pillow.

There wasn’t a lot that Sora could do to escape from this predicament. He couldn’t get up now, not with Riku muscling him close like this. At the same time— did he really want to?

Maybe… maybe giving in just a _little_ bit wouldn’t hurt?

Against his better judgement, Sora slipped his arms out from in between them to thread around the knight’s back.

It was just as woderful as he always assumed it would be. Riku was like a shield for everything bad, large and encompassing in comparison to Sora’s smaller, softer body, and fit around him so perfectly that he thought for a second that the two of them must have been made specifically to do this. The silver strands of his hair that were starting to grow past his shoulders now got trapped underneath one of their arms, and Riku hummed in his sleep when they accidentally got pulled. Sora felt like he was completely enveloped. Being enveloped in something like this wasn’t so bad of an experience.

Oh, who was he kidding? Sora’d never felt so damn comfortable in his _life_. He wanted to stay like this forever, no matter how icy Riku’s feet were against his legs or how tightly he was being squeezed. The closeness was everything he’d ever wanted and more.

Maybe he didn’t even need Riku to kiss him. He could live happily for the rest of his days on the memory of this moment alone.

Gently, Sora smoothed a hand over Riku’s shoulder blades, caressing him as if he were a very big cat. The comparison reminded him of his pets back home, and he smiled. Meow-Wow would probably love to cuddle like this sometime. Out of sheer habit, Sora fluttered his fingers a little, in the way that Meow-Wow liked to be petted after a long day of taking naps in the sunlight. Then, for a second, he could’ve sworn that Riku made the exact same sound.

Sora blinked, hesitantly continuing his movements when he saw that Riku hadn’t awoken. Was he remembering his cat’s purring a little too well, or was he actually hearing a cat purr somewhere around here?

The prince allowed his eyes to dart around the room, but nothing appeared to have entered or exited while he’d been distracted. It was just him and Riku.

Was Riku… purring?

Cautiously, Sora skimmed his fingers over Riku’s back again. The deep rumbling sound got louder.

He trailed lightly in small circles, moving from his upper back to his lower and then up once more. His touches were soothing and sweet. Barely present, so as not to cause any kind of unnecessary discomfort.

_Woah, he really is purring, huh?_ Sora thought dizzily. _I didn’t know that it was possible for someone to be so endearing. I think- I think my heart is going to explode._

Sora hadn’t even known that humans _could_ purr. Yet here Riku was, undeniably reacting to the way that Sora was trailing his hands over his back. It was absolutely adorable. And quite nice too, in a similar way to the satisfying warmth of petting an animal. Except _much_ better. He entertained the vague notion of getting to do this more often, although he recognized that there was absolutely no way he’d get Riku to relax like this at any other time.

The prince smiled. He pulled away a little (as much as he could without disturbing Riku’s hold) and carefully extracted his arm, brought his hand up to brush some of Riku’s hair out of his face, and then very carefully cupped his cheek.

It would be very easy to kiss him right now.

Not only was the thought tempting; it was near irresistible. Sora was hypnotized by the soft touches, by how domestic it felt to wake up in his company. He’d almost forgotten that this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. To kiss Riku on a morning like this… it would be everything he ever wanted.

Just thinking of it made him feel kind of giddy, a bit tipsy off of some nameless emotion that made him hotter than fire and lighter than air. Was it possible to get drunk on a feeling? He wondered, because the very idea of waking up in Riku’s arms and just being _allowed_ to touch and feel and bask in this heat was already so much to handle. Being kissed, he thought, would probably knock his soul right out of his body.

He couldn’t ever have that kind of intimacy with Riku, though. Look, daydream, sure. But never have.

The fact was simply that Riku was _way_ out of his league. He was like one of those famous statues from Olympus; tragically beautiful in the way that inspired poetry, the kind that Sora was too stupid to write. Sora was just a _prince_ , which was nothing particularly special in a world with more countries than there were stars in the sky.

He had the unfortunate luck of being the prince and Riku’s best friend in the entire world, neither of which were exactly the right position to kiss him without it raising some questions. The royal proceedings and rules were of very little importance to him. Rather, he didn’t really know if best friends were allowed to kiss each other in the way that he wanted. That was supposed to be reserved for lovers. And, as everybody knew, lovers were wildly different from best friends— he was quite certain that Papa had never wanted to kiss his best friend in the same way that he did with Dad, because that would be weird.

He and Riku had been best friends for nearly as long as he could remember. What if he didn’t want to stop? He _loved_ being Riku’s best friend! As selfish as it sounded, Sora wished that he could be Riku’s best friend and his lover at the same time. That would make everything so much easier.

Friend, lover, or otherwise, he still couldn’t kiss Riku while he was asleep like this. He needed to be respectful of his space. So, placing one last caress over Riku’s cheek, he drew away, and then looked up into his knight’s eyes.

Turquoise.

_Shoot._

He wasn’t surprised when he ended up tumbling over the side of the bed from the force of Riku’s shove.

“S-Sora! I’m sorry- I just- you scared me!” Riku yelled.

The knight fell over himself apologizing, moving so frantically to peer over the edge of the bed that he didn’t seem to notice his shirt riding down. It was those bandages again. He remembered them from the day before, and had been meaning to ask, but… well, now wasn’t the time.

Sora averted his eyes as Riku climbed down to help him off the floor. “You never told me that you purr.” He countered, hoping to distract his train of thought.

Unsurprisingly, Riku smacked him over the head with his pillow once they were standing again, then stormed off to get ready for the morning, grumbling all the while that he didn’t even know why he bothered.

\---

“ _Why_ do dragons have to fucking purr?” Riku complained, jamming the metal edge of his boots into a random wall. Fryja looked at him disappointedly. She didn’t approve of his angry stomps and kicks, having already scolded him for destroying a couple buildings in the same fashion. (Riku hadn’t meant to actually destroy them; he just had a hard time controlling his strength when he was angry, and had forgotten that Traverse Town’s architecture wasn’t built to withstand heavy blows. But that was none of Fryja’s business.)

_We do it to show our contentment,_ she offered calmly. _And to provide comfort to our friends and loved ones. I don’t understand why this is a point of contempt for you._

“It’s humiliating,” He said.

Typical. For someone who wanted to be human as much as he did, Riku didn’t seem to realize how much he already thought like one. Humans were obsessed with posturing, and presenting separate identities to every new person that they met, as if they were ashamed of the self that they contained. Riku was afraid of what, exactly? The prince knowing that he was enjoying himself? It was ridiculous, and so, so adorably human.

Fryja blew a plume of icy mist onto the street, garnering a few stunned looks from the human shoppers in the district. _I’m not going to argue with you about this,_ she stated plainly. _That is not the reason why I approached you._

“I know.”

_Then listen._

Riku sighed dramatically, continued on their path anyway, grunting to let her know that he was paying attention.

_You can’t keep doing all of this, Riku._

He clenched his fist. That was how she knew that he was completely aware of what she was talking about, likely even formulating a dismissive response, which she would refuse to accept. There had to be a line somewhere.

_His appointment with The Oracle is impending. Regardless of whether or not you think he is capable of making an informed decision on this matter, you cannot, and will not continue to withhold the prince’s memories once the two of you make it to Hallow Bastion. The Oracle will have your hide._ She informed.

“I can’t control my faerie side any more than I can control my draconic one,” The boy spat. “Why my powers have been converting his memories into dreams is beyond me.”

She snorted. _It’s because you’re scared._

“I’m not scared.”

_Yes,_ she stressed. _You are. You cannot stand the thought that he might pick you, neither can you accept that he may not, so you are simply taking everything related to that decision and using it to feed yourself like a coward._

Cookies and cakes enchanted with pieces of Sora’s memories were the least of her concerns, but she knew that it would be the most effective way to strike guilt into the heart of her younger brother. He looked like his heart had been ripped out of his chest.

“Well, I’ve tried not eating!” Riku shouted, throwing his hands in the air. “Sora and Ventus are too perceptive for that to work. They found me out in less than a month and forced me to start taking breakfast again.”

His outburst alarmed several pedestrians. She and Riku paid them no mind, continuing their trek towards the temple.

“It’s not like I can help being a dream eater. I- I can’t help how I am made, the darkness that dwells within me. The darkness that _is_ me.”

Goodness, how dramatic. He treated being a darkness user like some treated being criminally insane. It honestly wasn’t as horrible as he seemed to think it was. Darkness was simply another facet of life, the same as how all the elements were. There was no darkness that was inherently evil.

_I’m not telling you to cease being a changeling,_ Fryja attempted to reassure him. _What I’m telling you to do is stop acting foolishly. Sora needs his memories to make an informed and accurate choice. Your restriction of his memories is not only an invasion of his privacy, but also potentially destructive to the fabric of the universe, should his decision be made incorrectly._

Riku looked frustrated. He snarled in the way that fledglings were known to do, only delaying his response to give himself time to come up with an answer. “I’ve already told you that I’m not trying to convert them. I have no idea how I’m doing it, so how am I supposed to stop it?”

_Dunce._ She called, waving her tail. _Stop being afraid of his answers. Start putting your trust in the prince, and you will find that his heart has more than enough space to accommodate yours. Let go of pain and suffering._

“Now you sound like Vanitas.” Riku grumbled.

The little changeling, however, knew that she was correct, as she always was. Riku needed to face his best friend’s verdict. He needed to stop hiding behind the idea that Sora would never accept him.

Both of them were silent when they approached the grand braziers of the temple. Her little brother sniffed suspiciously, shifting his eyes from the scrolls and books of the inside to the dragon chittering in welcome right next to them. Fryja bowed her head to the guardian of the hoard and made a silent promise that neither of them would bring harm to his collection.

Riku only relaxed once he was ushered into the meditation room, where it was clean and simply furnished, the air thick with incense. He took a seat on the floor and looked up at her tiredly.

“Maybe you wouldn’t understand, because you were never raised as a human.” Riku began, eyes falling to the ground in front of his crossed legs. “Suffering is an innate part of the human experience, just as misunderstandings are, and happiness, and love. Humans are incredibly complex creatures. They’re beautiful. Imperfect, and wonderful, but… so _fragile.”_

He was lost in his thoughts, no doubt.

“I can’t present myself to Sora and expect him to accept me as I am. Not when I was the one who was sent to kill him, with these teeth and claws and stupid, stupid wings.”

Perhaps it had been a mistake on the part of their family to let him think that his wings were a curse, Fryja thought as she observed the way he scratched at his arms.

She knew it was not her place to question the Great Old Ones. They knew more than she by far— but she saw this little changeling for what he was. He was lost, and confused, and hurt. Riku was experiencing the pain of self-hatred alongside the isolation of a love yet unrealized. Never, if it had been up to her, would she have let Maleficent pretend to have such power over him when she didn’t. His wings, fangs, and every other beastlike quality that he had developed were as natural as anything else in this universe. They were not meant to be demonized in this way.

Maleficent only had so much claim to his soul. She could not affect his love for Sora, nor could she really and truly cause the prince to love Riku back, no matter how much she wanted to. Love never did as it was told…

Which was why she saw such loneliness in two people who loved each other so completely.

It’d been a mistake to let Maleficent get to Riku first.

_It is you who doesn’t understand humans, tia’an. There is one thing that has always described them, and it is not their wars. They are compassionate. They love each other. They love those that are not a part of them, too. Humans are curious and willing to take chances on things that logical beings would never dare, and they are usually right,_ she said to him, gently. _Sora would not be a fool to love you. He would be human._

“I don’t think he’s a fool.” Riku claimed, refusing to meet Fryja in the eyes. “But he isn’t in love with me. That’s my burden to bear, for now and for eternity.”

Young love.

What a sight to behold.

\---

“Will that be all, Your Highness?”

“Uhh… yep!” Sora confirmed, excitedly watching the weaponsmith pull down his purchase from their spot on the display rack. “Just those trench knives.”

He spent the next minute or two puzzling out how much munny he owed. Math was most definitely not his strong suit, nor had it ever been, so it took him until the knives had been wrapped up in soft leather and placed down on the counter in front of him to finish counting the sparkling star-shaped currency that was typical of most countries in the area.

The man scratched his beard thoughtfully. “These're awfully specific weapons for a prince to be buyin’ on his own. There someone yer gettin’ ‘em for?”

Sora nodded. “Yeah, they’re for my best friend. He was practically swooning over these when we dipped in here yesterday, so I thought I should buy them while he was out this morning, as a present.”

Carefully, he moved the knives from the counter to his satchel.

“Ah, tha’ lil loverboy. What a struck one.” The man mused, leaning forward onto the counter. “I hope he says yes.”

Sora arched an eyebrow questioningly. Realizing that he didn’t, in fact, know what the shopkeeper was insinuating, a mischievous smile bloomed underneath the perfect red curls of his mustache.

“Yeh know— them knives aren’t only for fightin’. They’re promises of devotion.”

Mentally, Sora flipped through the (admittedly lackluster) dictionary in his mind to see if he could come up with a matching term. He found nothing.

“As in, mos’ people give ‘em to partners to ask for their hand in marriage. But you look a lil bit young for tha’, so maybe jus’ boyfriend will do.” Just to top it off, the man winked. “Alright. Next in line.”

Sora found that the room was about twenty degrees warmer than it had been previously. He reached for his collar, tugging it away from him a bit to make sure that he wouldn’t faint from overheating.

_B-Boyfriend??_

Now that was an idea to hold onto for a rainy day, he thought as he wandered dizzily out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if this is relevant to you guys but I took inspiration for this chapter from the song "Isn't It Love" from the SU movie. I literally haven't even seen that movie but the song fucking slaps.


	19. Electric!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy gamestocks everybody! Here's a new chapter to celebrate the fucking over of the bourgeoisie.
> 
> Thanks so much to everybody who reads and leaves kudos, and VERY special thanks to those who comment as well! I thrive off of feedback of any kind and I love seeing interaction with the media that I've put so much time and effort into. You guys really are the best <333333

_“Hands off the prince.”_ Riku warned.

He stood with his chest puffed out dangerously, angry glare fixated on the poor man whose chin was being threatened by one of his numerous weapons, a gleaming knife with a sigil that he’d carved himself. Yet another knife was poised delicately over the man’s spinal cord, just enough pressure being applied to the tip that it put a small fold in his shirt.

“Make a single move to hurt him and I will end your ability to walk.”

“Stop being so dramatic, Riku!” Sora laughed. “We were just doing a… what do you call this? A handshake?”

Clasped in the man’s hand was one of Sora’s, which had him trapped in an overly enthusiastic loop of going up and down and up again as the prince smiled like the sunrise. Even Riku could tell that it was time for him to give it up, and Riku was no model of social interaction. He sighed a little in embarrassment.

“That doesn’t matter. He’s technically not allowed to touch you.” For good reason, Riku thought, although he didn’t voice that out loud. “My job entails discouraging those who dare to touch you without going through my judgement first.”

Riku allowed darkness to swirl around his body. From under his boots, ice crystals of deep purple raced forwards to strike the man that he had in his hold, spreading quickly over the man’s legs to freeze him in place. It took a few moments to gather enough strength to breathe deeply through the restrictions of his bandages, but once he had it, Riku blew a cloud of ice softly out of his mouth to coat the man’s shoulder. He was covered in a fine layer of frost before the completion of a full minute.

Only then did Riku lower his knives, stepping back to grab Sora’s arm and pull him away.

“Wait a minute,” Sora protested. “We can’t leave him like that!”

Riku rolled his eyes as they moved to examine a different shelf across the room. “I don’t see a reason why not. The ice won’t hurt him, and it’ll be gone soon. The worst that my darkness will do to him in a place like this is give him a headache.”

Being left in such a state was the entire point. If that random guy hadn’t wanted to face the consequences, then he should never have ignored the rules of knighthood— Riku was supposed to be the deciding factor on who was fit to touch his charge.

“Besides, for all I knew, he might’ve been an assassin. I didn’t get a good enough read on his magic field to confirm otherwise.”

Of course, Riku didn’t actually think that. The only things he’d really cared about were the points of contact that had immediately alarmed his senses, some incredibly loud and demanding voice in his head screaming that someone he didn’t know had his fucking _hands_ on Sora like he belonged to him. Whatever he’d been doing had been making Riku’s skin crawl uncomfortably. He was just glad that it was gone.

Sora sent apologetic glances behind him, but didn’t fight the gentle tugs from Riku when he pretended to look through the leather journals on display. “No assassin would dare to get that close to me with you standing nearby,” he said, intending both to compliment and retort. The knight preened almost imperceptibly.

Like clockwork, he squared his shoulders and looked up with a tad more pride, serious eyes taking on an even sharper quality than usual.

“Precisely.” Riku agreed. A quick tap to Sora’s nose caused him to blink a few times in surprise, and he brought up the arm that wasn’t lodged in Riku’s grip to wipe the area. “That’s because I treat every potential threat seriously, not just the ones who already have a knife buried halfway into your ribcage.”

They stayed on the opposite side of that store for the rest of the time they were in there, since, although they didn’t mention it between them, Riku had won. Sora trusted his judgement of character enough to let well enough be. (Later, the two of them would discover that the man Riku’d frozen was a notorious pickpocket who was after Sora’s necklace, and Riku swore that he’d never felt smugger.)

When they were finished browsing, the prince and his knight rejoined the busy street.

“So,” Sora drawled. “I guess we’re going to be setting sail again tomorrow.”

Riku hummed, eyes scanning the crowd around them for signs of suspicious activity. His senses weren’t picking up anything out of the ordinary. Even so, he preferred to remain vigilant in crowds. He’d never much liked being in large groups.

“I feel a little weird about it, to be honest. I’m not really used to so many new places and people… not that it’s a bad thing! You know, I just,” He swallowed. “I like being here. With you.”

Casting a curious glance in Sora’s direction, Riku ducked and threaded and pushed through the streets like an expert. “I’ll admit, it’s been nice.” he responded carefully.

Nice isn’t how he would put it if he thought he could get away with sounding normal and not like somebody who was approximately one more soft touch away from sobbing out a confession on the cobblestone walkway that they were crossing over. But hey, you can’t win ‘em all.

He’d never imagined that he’d be able to spend time with the prince in this way. The two of them had spent so long cooped up in the living castle that he’d almost forgotten what it was like to spend time out in public, and while the endless waves of noise and clutter wasn’t quite to his tastes, Riku was a little too head over heels for the prince to be able to claim that he was having a bad time watching Sora explore. There was just this innocent joy that was so infectious, a happy ray of sun emanating from Sora that Riku simply couldn’t resist.

It brightened every time he came across a new store window and pressed his nose against the glass. It shined with the gleaming force of a thousand suns whenever he discovered the smallest thing to be happy about. Even while crying over a pretty poem on the town monument, shining cheeks matching the water spilling from the fountain’s tiers, Sora didn’t stop smiling. He’d tossed a wishing coin into the water. He made funny faces at little kids on the street, skipped along to the music of a local band, smiled at strangers, smiled at Riku, smiled at _everything._ Riku was smitten. Absolutely, positively smitten beyond words.

Not that that was particularly new or relevant information.

“It’s not like I won’t be with you when we leave tomorrow.” Riku continued, trying look anywhere but the adorable little stars that Sora’d painted on his cheeks that morning.

Sora gave a startled laugh. “Y-Yeah, I guess that’s true!”

The street that they’d been walking down suddenly opened up into a large clearing. On the right was a number of small shops just like the ones from the other districts, and the left contained a building so massive that he almost had to lean back to see the very top. Riku squinted at the towering form of the greenhouse that rose like a beacon into the night.

It was lit by a veritable constellation of softly glowing lights, recognizable to Riku as controlled solar magic. He supposed it made sense— whatever plants they had growing in there would need an artificial cycle of night and day in order to grow.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s stupid.” Sora muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “For some reason I’ve been getting this feeling that… that after we get to Hallow Bastion, we won’t see each other again.” He laughed a little awkwardly.

They wandered through the entrance of the greenhouse, touring through the forests of trees and flowers that were open for viewing. Here and there were some gardeners tending to a particular plant or flower, and whenever they passed by one, both Sora and Riku became too self-conscious to continue their conversation.

Eventually, when they exited from the other side, they found themselves to be suitably alone. There was a small outside garden with similar lighting and some deserted benches to sit on, and they quickly took one farthest from the door.

Riku thought about how to respond while they settled in. Sora’s concerns were not necessarily unfounded, but he couldn’t possibly tell him that.

He wasn’t even sure how much Sora knew at this point. Any interactions he’d had with Riku’s family should’ve been suppressed by now, but on the off chance that they weren’t, then Sora had apt reason to be feeling anxious. An impending visit to The Oracle wasn’t exactly your average trip to the marketplace. From what Riku knew, and from what he’d spoken of with Fryja so far…

“I can’t say for sure that that can’t happen under any circumstances.” Riku answered.

Once Sora gained all his memories back unaltered, it was likely that he would be able to put together what was happening all by himself.

They would arrive at Hallow Bastion just like how Maleficent intended. While Riku was talking with The Oracle in one dimension, he assumed that Sora would be taken to the next, where his family would ask him to make his choice. He’d already been given a taste of his trials by the king of the oceans himself. This would be the ultimatum of what the dragon clans had to offer to him; upon learning what Riku was, either Sora would choose to spare his life and journey to gain a dragon’s soul, or he would leave Riku to be executed by Maleficent in his stead.

A pang of dread struck through Riku’s stomach at the thought. It would certainly be the easiest of all the possibilities, although he knew pretty intimately that Maleficent wouldn’t kill him right away. He also figured that, for how many mercies it offered, it would have the worst chances of being selected.

If Sora chose to leave after being informed of Riku’s fate to kill him, then Riku knew that the dragons would protect Sora’s decision and attempt to undo everything down to the beginning. The fates were strong. So was Maleficent’s control over them. The dragons, when angry, were stronger. They would always use their power to right a wrong in the universe, no matter how gruesome the task, and thus Riku figured that his very existence would be ripped thread for thread from reality, claws on his lifeline like a seam ripper to a false stitch, and Maleficent would slaughter what was left of his obliterated body for allowing her plans to be broken.

On the other hand, there was no way that Sora would choose to keep him around after learning about what Riku really was. Every fiber of his being was supposed to be dedicated to Maleficent’s purposes, be them capturing Sora’s heart or killing him dead. Maleficent had created him to be a living violation of Sora’s autonomy. Nobody, not even someone as warm and forgiving as Sora, would find it easy to care for Riku in spite of that.

Riku shook the thoughts out of his mind, turning to meet the slightly hurt expression of his best friend. Sora studied him for a moment. Then, he rubbed a hand at his eyes.

Was he crying?

Right… Sora probably didn’t know any of that yet.

It wasn’t fair of Riku to be so negative. He should be comforting his friend now, while they still had the time to spend together doing stupid things and pretending like their lives weren’t at stake. The urge to wipe away Sora’s tears was nagging at him again. He kept his hands firmly to himself, deciding that it would be better not to.

“But, even if we do get separated somehow,” he elaborated softly. “We’ll make our way back to each other eventually.”

Sora scrubbed one or two tears away from his eyes. The prince was already starting to calm down, taking slow and controlled breaths so as not to hyperventilate himself into an anxious spiral. “I know that I’ll find you again,” he said after a few minutes of continuing in this fashion.

Letting his gaze flicker up to the starry sky, Riku suddenly felt a desire for rain. It would’ve been a good excuse to pull Sora into his arms.

“It’s just that,” the prince sniffed, fixing his knight with a sad but oh so beautiful smile. “I’m going to miss you so much when you’re gone.”

They didn’t notice more people walking out into the garden, nor did they hear their apologetic whispers when they realized they were interrupting. Sora and Riku were each lost a little too much in their own heads to care. The rose hedges behind them opened up to a large dining patio for one of the restaurants next door, and absently, Riku could tell that they were making a little bit of a scene. Due to the aforementioned reasons, it fell from his mind as he moved to stand in front of his friend.

He took Sora’s hand in his. “When? Come on, Sora. I’m here right now, and I won’t be going anywhere for as long as I can help it.”

Perhaps it was madness that moved Riku to act the way he did. Climbing to his knees, he held the prince’s hand delicately in his own and rested his other over his chest. His prince’s eyes were such a lovely shade of blue.

“By my vows as a knight, I swear it so.” Riku whispered before pressing a reverent kiss to Sora’s hand. It wasn’t as flustering as he’d expected it to be this time, more a seal to his words than anything else. “I will always return to you.”

_“Riku…”_ Sora breathed.

His ruddy cheeks were cleaned of their last tears on the back of his fist. This time, he didn’t look quite as saddened as he had earlier, a soft look appearing on his face.

Suddenly, Sora made a small noise of alarm and began rummaging through his satchel.

Riku blinked at the absence of Sora’s hand in the space where it’d been only seconds before. “Uh, Sora?”

“Hold on,” he muttered, dumping a whole pile of potions out in order to ease his search. “I just remembered that I have something for you.” Sora dug through layers and layers of stuff that he had crammed in there, most of it pretty useless, until he finally seemed to have stumbled upon the thing that he was looking for. He procured it and pressed it into Riku’s hand.

Wrapped leather. Or so it looked like to Riku, since Sora neglected to open it for him. He began to untie the thin cords holding it together, confused.

Riku recognized the edge of the knives and almost dropped the bundle onto the floor. “You didn’t- Sora, you bought these for me?”

Sniffing, the prince nodded. “Yeah.” He ducked his head in embarrassment, seeming to realize that his mild outburst was a little inappropriate for a prince to express in public. Presenting to a crowd was not something that Sora was very practiced in, no matter how much he was enjoying being outside. “I wanted to do something nice for you.” 

The finger slots on the knives were plated with titanium, giving them a thick, heavy feel and a multicolored shine. Each handle was marked with the alchemical symbol for water. He smiled as he slipped one of them into place, channeling a pulse of ice magic through it and watching the metal freeze into delicate swirls of frost.

Similar to Soul Eater, the knives had inscribed on their blades a pair of wings, though these ones were much closer to a bird’s. Every individual feather became outlined in dark black when he ran magic through the one in his hand.

“They’re amazing,” Riku said, in wonder.

Sora smiled fondly. He was mostly over his period of sadness, which Riku could feel through their link. Just needed a little bit of common cheering up.

“All of your other weapons are under oath of your knighthood, aren’t they?” Sora asked. “They’re all supposed to protect me. And that’s cool, but that isn’t going to help you if we get separated.” A more serious look crossed his face while his hand drifted to the sword that he kept on his back. He drew it, aiming it up at the sky.

Now they were _definitely_ getting some weird stares.

For a moment, he looked incredibly focused- almost angry, for how set he seemed- but then he lowered his sword again, casting a glance to Riku.

“I forbid these weapons from taking your oath.” Sora whispered, just strong enough that Riku was able to catch it. “Use them to protect yourself when I can’t be there to help you fight. They’re not for me. They’re completely and totally your own.”

The handle heated slightly as the ice and darkness retreated back into Riku’s palm. Sora didn’t look like he was scared of what he’d just said, likely because he didn’t understand the significance.

“I don’t know what to say.” Riku answered, looking from his new weapons to Sora and back. He felt a little sick to his stomach.

If they didn’t take his oath of knighthood to protect Sora, then they could be used to kill him.

As much as he wanted to beg Sora to take it back, he couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth. He couldn’t just refuse the gift. It was too… thoughtful.

“Even if I’m right, and we don’t see each other for whatever reason, I’ll feel better knowing that you’ll have weapons that are loyal to you.”

“What about you?” Riku asked, heaving himself off his knees and brushing the dirt from his greaves. “How can I be sure that you’ll be okay without me?”

Taking the hint, Sora hopped up to his feet as well. They clashed their weapons together, in Sora’s hands, his sword, and in Riku’s, his new knives. Now they were speaking each other’s language.

Riku twisted around this way and that, shirking off Sora’s every blow with quick slashes and graceful deflections. He loved how versatile they were. Quickly, he released a wave of his darkness into the knives and smirked as they channeled a tide of snow to barrel at his friend. It was no match for Sora’s light. The prince breathed in, exploding into a raging storm of fire on his exhale that melted Riku’s attack before it could hit.

Sora did a cartwheel to dodge his attempted punch, eyeing the sharp knuckles of the trench knives that easily would’ve punctured his skin had the blow connected. The cartwheel may have looked unnecessary, but Sora knew what he was doing— the momentum that it gave him allowed him to launch himself into the air and stand on the side of one of the rose hedges enclosing the garden.

Running across the leaves and brambles wasn’t easy, even for him. It took immense focus to keep himself from floating too high or from accidentally disconnecting his lightweight form from the makeshift wall. Riku knew this, and thus was able to utilize a momentary lapse in concentration to dismantle the magic holding him up.

“Good luck with that,” Riku taunted, crouching into a casting stance. “Gravira!”

Although it would’ve been more effective with an earth symbol, his darkness was able to overpower the type with enough strength to throw a good spell at him, and Sora’s ability to ignore gravity was suddenly nullified. The prince caught himself on his arms and flipped back to standing.

He seemed to have predicted it. The moment he was up, he grabbed his sword from where he’d thrown it to the floor not a second ago and slashed it by Riku’s side. Narrowly avoiding it by erecting a wall of ice, Riku jumped away.

Riku had only three elemental proficiencies: darkness, water, and earth. Sora had each opposite, being light, fire, and air. They liked fighting together, because whenever they did, they got to see a flurry of elements coming into perfect harmony between them.

This was how they got across all the things that neither of them knew how to say out loud. People didn’t tend to understand it, but they didn’t need to.

They fought toe-to-toe, back and forth like the moon and the tide, orbiting each other like the earth does the sun. It was exhilarating to be doing this again after more than a day of being unable to challenge each other. The itch to fight had been crawling all over him for hours, and he was sure that Sora felt it too, judging by the look in his eyes. Their movements were an argument, every hit its own conversation. Riku finally felt like he was being understood.

Soon enough, both he and Sora came to a consensus, separating to allow the other a final move. Riku finished his point quickly by slashing his blades in an x-formation, sending a rally of sharpened hailstones at his best friend.

Sora was hit by a few of them, only managing to dispel about half. Even so, he smiled, wiping the thin trail of drawn blood off his cheek.

Someone in the garden had started screaming, yelling at the two of them to stop before they killed each other. Riku almost laughed. Sora’s grin grew ever brighter at the words, and he gained an extra spark to his movements as he called forth his own final move.

Kingdom Key was thrust into the open air, a look of concentration overcoming the prince’s features. When a deep rumble rolled across the sky, Riku looked up, stunned, and realized that there was a storm brewing. An electrical storm.

“Sora, hold off! You’re gonna call lightning if you’re not careful!”

Instead of running for cover like Riku’d expected, Sora grit his teeth, gathering the resolve to perform his spell.

Riku could feel the prince’s heartrate spinning off like it was a drum rattling in his ears. It made him anxious, wanting to run over and bundle him inside before he’d have a damn heart attack, but Sora seemed to notice his concern and shook his head no from behind the obstruction of his arms.

Wind swirled around Sora in a huge gale, crackling with electricity that had trickled down from the clouds above. His spiky hair was blowing like crazy in every direction at once. The cloak that he’d borrowed from Riku blew behind him, revealing the tunic that he wore underneath, and with it, the silver chain of his crown necklace.

The peak of the energy crashed over him, and Sora shouted “T-Thundaga!”

A bolt of lightning struck the ground in front of him, shaking the floor and tossing Riku over.

He landed painfully on his wings. Unable to do much more than gasp and wait for them to stop twitching in his bandages, Riku shut his eyes, collapsing in surrender as his body went numb from the electricity still coursing through the air.

Sora had won.

As soon as Riku was feeling well enough to move, he laughed. He threw his head back, hair spread out all over the cold stone of the garden path (most assuredly collecting all sorts of dirt and things that Riku would have to brush out later), and laughed harder than he thought he ever had.

“Sora!” He exclaimed in between almost delirious bouts of laughter that had him struggling not to roll over and exacerbate his injuries further. “You did it, you used a thunder spell!”

Riku smiled, baring his fangs for the world to see. He felt no urge to hide them right now; he didn’t care. The light padding of Sora’s boots sounded next to Riku’s ear, and Sora’s hand appeared in his vision a second later, offering to help him up.

“I’m so proud of you,” Riku told him. “That spell was _perfect_.”

The prince’s hands were shaking when he went to card through his own hair, tousling it back into some semblance of his usual hairstyle. “Yeah, well, I don’t think I’ll be doing it again any time soon.”

“That’s not really the point, though, is it?”

“Nah.” Sora agreed. “The point was kicking your ass.”

Their hands met in a fist bump, both of them smiling brightly at the other.

\---

Of course, they hadn’t been able to avoid the consequences of their actions for very long. Sora and Riku ended up touring around most of the district for the rest of the afternoon while delivering apologies for the noise. Evidently, Sora’s thunder had been heard throughout the entire town, interrupting meetings, startling pedestrians, even causing the customers watching them from the restaurant next door to flee in a panic. They felt just awful for it, but secretly, neither regretted their conversation.

Riku was very happy about his new set of knives. He was even happier that, in spite of his nerves, he was feeling a little better about how the prince would fare without him.

Sora was capable. He was strong. More so than Riku had ever noticed, being the idiot that he was. He should be shamed for having such little faith in his best friend, because now that he’d seen firsthand what Sora had trained himself to do, Riku was convinced that his liege really was the most powerful person that he knew.

Sure, Vanitas had him beat by sheer force, but Sora was better than that— he had bravery, perseverance, and the strongest will of anyone Riku had ever met.

So Riku reluctantly allowed Sora to take the win that he’d worked so hard for. It was time to let the prince make his decision, regardless of whatever Riku wanted to do to delay or prevent it. There was no trick or spell that would delay the inevitable. Even now it was looming over the horizon, a dark cloud of fear making Riku want to crawl into himself and cover his eyes.

Sora would make his choice and Riku would simply have to live with his answer. For once, Riku felt at peace with it, the surrender an odd kind of relief now that he’d decided to let it run its course.

\---

He thought it through over and over again as the end of the day drew nearer. At dinner, Riku was distracted, and at night, settled under the blankets, he listened to Sora’s soft breathing about a foot away from him as he debated how he would react.

Really, truly, no matter which way he looked at it or how he tried to justify his worst-case scenarios in his head, Riku knew that Sora was not a cruel person at heart. This decision would very likely be difficult for him. They’d been friends for so long that he could hardly imagine a time that they wouldn’t be, and only two days prior had Sora asked for them to remain that way, possibly even forever. Learning what Riku was would confuse him, but would it be enough to make Sora want to retract all that?

But what other option did he have? Riku knew that journeying to gain a dragon soul would be a different kind of strain on the prince that he probably wasn’t equipped to deal with. As if anyone would be equipped to deal with something like this.

Nobody would know what to do in Sora’s shoes, he was sure. Riku was one of the worst people he could have as a best friend, unless Sora wouldn’t _mind_ being friends with a fanged, clawed, winged monster like him, who was designed to literally take Sora’s heart and eat it. Honestly, he might not. That thought had been digging at Riku for a very long time, since it went against everything that tortured him both in waking and in sleep. If anyone could love a monster, he was sure that Sora, the kindest and most caring person in the world, would be the one to do it.

He tugged at his hair frustratedly, wishing that he could just pick one thing to worry about instead of everything all at once. Maybe he shouldn’t have developed a habit of wearing out his mental state if he hadn’t wanted this to happen, he thought bitterly.

You know what? Maybe it was all the fault of these feelings. Every skip in his chest and swoop of his stomach was to blame for this, because never experiencing this at all, Riku might’ve been able to fulfil his purpose.

Maybe…

No. He still wouldn’t be able to kill him, even if pain and love and sorrow had never found their places in his heart. Should his body have been devoid of everything that humans felt, Riku wouldn’t do it. It was impossible to snuff out a light so bright.

Then why was it so hard to find a way not to? And what was love, really, if a monster was capable of feeling it?

Maleficent had told him in dreams scarcely separable from memories that monsters were incapable of human emotion. He didn’t think that she was correct, having learned only recently that he shouldn’t be taking everything she says at face value. What if she’d lied? He remembered their very first meeting and what a trashfire _that_ was. Back then, he’d known nothing, either of himself or her or the realms beyond. Maleficent had confused him. She’d led him to dead-ends of thinking that he was still mulling over today, and why, he wondered, was he always assuming that what she said was true?

She must’ve lied, if only to encourage him not to mix his heart with his goal. As much as he hated, absolutely despised to admit it, he knew that she had been right about that. It would’ve been much easier if he hadn’t developed attachments or a personality at all.

If Riku had actually grown into the changeling soldier that he was meant to be, he figured that her plan would’ve been perfectly set. He had the perfect combination of dragons’ strength and the fae’s false charm, and something unique to changelings, which was his ability to manipulate dreams (even though he was very bad at doing it on purpose). All it would’ve taken was a couple of well-timed words, and he could’ve killed him with his lips still ghosting over Sora’s, cold and impersonally.

The idea made him sick. Riku didn’t… he didn’t _want_ the ability to manipulate someone into loving him for the sake of a quick kill. And that was because he wasn’t detached. Riku had emotions, he had remorse, morals, love.

Did he really? Was there a way he’d mislabeled it?

He didn’t know whether or not love was what he though it was, but it certainly wasn’t the nothingness that Maleficent had advised him to return to when he was younger.

_Love is way too many questions,_ Riku groaned to himself tiredly.

Love felt like something so incredibly massive that he couldn’t see it, could barely fit it into his body when he already had so much darkness swirling around in there taking up space. It felt like electricity and fire and something so much gentler than that. Like snowfall, he guessed, even though he’d never seen any.

It felt like everything and nothing at once. Consuming every action and word and thought, novel, exciting, new, and yet so incredibly ancient. Love had been dwelling within him for so long that he didn’t know which parts of him existed before it.

He wanted to feel it. He craved it. He hated it, because love made him feel exactly as young as he was.

Love made him feel adjacent to human, and he supposed that was exactly why the universe had trapped him in an infinite circle of wanting it, needing it, and having to move it aside for the sake of the one he loved. After all, the universe loved jokes.

His turmoil made a pretty funny punchline.

\---

Gods, he was such a fool.

Hour five of laying in bed and staring at the ceiling hadn’t caused his head to stop spinning yet. Riku could feel the night crawling forward, even if the sun wouldn’t rise until they left the borders of Traverse Town once again. Each second that ticked by felt like another knife on his throat. He swallowed thickly, heart beating wildly as he struggled to keep his thoughts out of his head, but it had no effect now that he was on his second night of sleep deprivation.

It was at these moments that he really missed having his own bed, because the only thing worse than being unable to stop obsessing over his troubles was Sora being so damn close.

With his mussed-up hair and pretty freckles, and those sweet, soft-looking lips…

Riku smacked his forehead a couple times, cursed, and prayed that the night would be over before he could lose too much more of his stability.

\---

“Shut up shut up shut up _shut up!”_ He hissed.

Riku only had about two more hours until the city lamps would be lit. He was so close to getting out of this unscathed, if only Fryja would just shut up and stop being so loud. At this rate, she was going to wake Sora, and nothing short of a city being destroyed was usually able to do that.

_I told you,_ Fryja whispered, amusement evident in her voice. _He’s saying your name._

No, he wasn’t. This whole thing was probably just a figment of his imagination, messing with the borders of reality as his head tended to do after more than twenty-four hours of being awake. Sora definitely wasn’t nuzzling into him like he was some kind of giant pillow, and surely, Fryja would have enough of a moral compass to leave him alone while he was in the middle of having a mental crisis.

He would admit with only the slightest amount of shame that he might be losing his grip on the calm and collected demeanor that he’d somehow found the ability to pull together earlier that day. Perhaps the idea that in a little over a few days he would be meeting with one of the most well-known dragons of all time and being judged by her was making him a little nervous. And maybe he was still scared of what Sora would choose when they got to Hallow Bastion. Would it be so unreasonable for him to be losing his mind a little bit?

Except he couldn’t be hallucinating the way that Sora was muttering against the skin of his neck, speaking volumes of inaudible words that sent shivers all up and down Riku’s body from the sensation alone. The feel was like being hit by lightning— and he knew now exactly what it was like to be struck by one of Sora’s spells.

Riku trembled as Sora formed the outline of his name once, seeming to forget whatever it was that he’d been saying before. He was dead asleep, so he supposed it would make sense that his thoughts weren’t completely connected. Sora’s arms wound around him very slowly and pulled him with a loose grip.

“Fryja,” he panted, barely having enough breath to speak. “Can you kindly piss off?”

The dragon grunted at him and clattered off towards the sliding screen, but she didn’t leave the room. He could sense her presence just as strongly as ever.

_I’ll leave you to your fun, as long as you remember to visit the temple before you set sail in the morning._

“Sure, sure.” Riku agreed. Anything to get her out of here; he was already feeling so exposed and vulnerable that he would do near anything to be alone with his spiraling thoughts again, no matter how much it’d made him want to stab his eyes out.

Sora’s touches were rapidly eroding at his ability to think in full sentences. If she stayed for any longer, she’d get the chance to make fun of him for near falling apart at the seams from something so meaningless.

_Well that’s no way to talk to a tiasenkh,_ she teased.

Riku shook even more when Sora started up again, this time seeming hugging Riku even closer to him. The fates were out to kill Riku tonight.

“It’s not my fault,” Riku forced through his teeth. “It’s Sor- _aahhhhh!”_ His tongue immediately went slack in his mouth, whole body shuddering at the feel of Sora’s hand brushing against the lines of the dream eater sigil on his lower back. Heat surged through his chest and went all throughout his wings, making him go limp from a wave of pleasant dizziness. “Aahh…”

_Okay, now that’s my cue to get out of here._

Riku didn’t even notice her leaving, as he was far too busy being drained of the last dregs of his consciousness, the warm and overpowering feeling coursing through his body dragging him down into an early, unplanned sleep.

For once, he didn’t dream of anything at all.

\---

The morning came and the two of them awoke intertwined.

Neither could tell which limb was whose anymore, for they seemed to have merged into one being overnight. Sora was Riku and Riku was Sora. They liked being that way, one and the same in everything but mind, and so that was how they stayed for a long collection of minutes.

Riku purred softly at Sora’s sleepy attempts to rub his back. Too blissed-out to even realize that he wasn’t daydreaming, Riku allowed this to happen for much longer than he usually would have, keening and trilling the way that a bird would to the delight of his prince. They pressed their foreheads together, Riku with closed eyes and a tiny grin illuminating his features. Sora’s heart felt full and satisfied.

When he opened his eyes, Sora couldn’t help but notice that the turquoise was so bright that it almost looked like it was glowing…

Suddenly, Riku’s eyes widened in sheer unadulterated panic.

Sora’s shout of “Riku, I’m so sorry!!!” could be heard throughout the entire floor that their rooms were on, awakening most everyone who’d still been struggling to drag themselves up for a cup of coffee and a bath before they’d be out at sea once again. Ventus in particular was given a rude start to his day when a frantic void of dark flames slammed into his chest at mach speed and formed into his shaking, absolutely and inconsolably terror-stricken little brother.

Babbling that he could never show his face around Sora again (just like every other time he’d taken Sora’s hand without thinking or accidentally implied that he was anything other than completely aloof to the prince’s touch), Riku hardly seemed to realize that Ventus had slipped out of the room to get ready after the fourth time that he’d recounted the night’s events.

They really should’ve given them separate beds, Ventus thought as he was forced to witness both Sora and Riku shouting apologies at each other from the moment that they saw each other again in the middle of the dining hall.

Kings Cloud and Leon looked incredibly confused as to why they were having some kind of bowing competition in front of the breakfast table, but Ventus advised them that it was better not to ask when it came to Sora and Riku. They’d wear themselves out eventually.

“You’re just… really comfortable,” Sora excused, so flushed that Ventus was worried he may faint. “I couldn’t resist!”

“I told you, it’s my fault for getting so close to where you were lying. I know you can’t control what you grab ahold of in your sleep.”

Ventus stopped listening at that point, because he knew from experience that not only would this argument continue for the rest of their breakfast, it would follow them for the next few years _._ An argument between them was never truly forgotten, and so this would be repeating itself for enough times that Ven decided he’d catch the reruns with Vanitas instead of wasting his time now.

Sora was just embarrassed to have slipped up again after he’d promised himself to stay out of Riku’s personal space. Riku was flustered for a great number of reasons, including that he was now responsible for pinning two hotel guests to the wall with some throwing knives when they got too close to accidentally bumping into Sora’s shoulder on their way through the dining hall. Both were more preoccupied with each other than anything else.

Something heavy had fallen between them the day before, and they could feel it humming with raw potential even miles and miles from the place that they knew was going to be their next greatest obstacle. It caused their emotions to run a little hotter than usual.

Sora could feel it whenever they so much as looked at each other. It was as if Riku’s gaze was hypnotizingly, powerfully _electric_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is canon in this fic that Riku would 100% listen to the song "hoplessly devoted to you" and be an edgy bitch over relating to the lyrics. go ahead and imagine him singing it, guaranteed instant laughter and/or seratonin


	20. Red in the Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a kinda short chapter, but hopefully it'll be at least somewhat satisfying. I've been taking a lot of time off for my mental health lately so updates are gonna be a little more spaced out now. Even so, I'm working on it! 
> 
> And thank you to all readers and commenters. I love you guys.

Riku felt it in his very bones when the shift began to occur. It was like his body, his blood, his cells, all the way down to his atoms were being ripped in half as reality started to change into a new form.

The part of him that was connected to Sora screeched and protested that something was going horribly wrong. His life force felt like it was fading in and out, making alarm bells go off in Riku’s head that sent his head spiraling and heart pounding with panic- he needed to _save_ Sora, he needed to stop this from happening- but he forced himself to be calm. Sora hadn’t noticed it happening yet.

In front of him, the prince was happily chatting with Ventus and the kings, the latter giving all of them a tour of the castle that they’d left behind in their childhood with such clarity that it seemed like it’d only been ten minutes since the two of them had last lived in the blackened stone walls. King Strife let his hands linger on the stone brick when he reached out a hand to touch it, and he rubbed some soot between his fingers once he pulled away. Only a matter of time now before the bricks would open up and swallow Riku whole.

Anywhere could be the place, and any minute now could be the time. While he knew that The Oracle was said to live at the very top of the castle, he didn’t know exactly how to get there. Each corridor was a potential threat to him. Staircases, stepladders, and trapdoors in the ceiling made him twitch anxiously. His body splintered a little more.

Oddly enough, being torn apart on a chemical level felt an awful lot like the second right before falling asleep: unfocused and ungrounded to the earth.

Every step that he took was weighted. Riku staggered back and forth in spite of the perfectly even stone flooring beneath him, feeling awkward and off-kilter with his dragon senses warning him of immense danger all around him. It was just an overreaction, he reasoned, forcing his eyes to Sora to remind himself that the prince was fine. He wasn’t dying. They were just being moved to adjacent dimensions. Though he wouldn’t be able to feel him, Sora wasn’t actually going to be dead, but even knowing that, he found the fading magical signature of his friend difficult to accept close-fisted.

He dodged the odd glances from Sora and Ventus whenever they sent their concerns his way, because he wasn’t entirely sure if he would be able to brush it off in the state that he was in. Riku might do something rash, like try to enact a counter spell before the two of them were finished separating. That wouldn’t lead to anything good.

Sora only seemed to notice once Riku’s darkness was halfway wedged between this dimension and the next. The prince stopped in his tracks, causing his parents and Ventus to look back at him in confusion. A grim expression was set on his face and a shudder went through his body.

“Where did it go?” He asked, eyes flickering to Riku’s desperately.

They both felt each other’s absence keenly. Without Sora’s light, the half of Riku’s darkness that had already moved was overwhelmed by its own magnitude. It made him feel odd and shivery, maybe even sick, and for the first time, Riku wondered if this was what it was like to be cold. “It isn’t gone.” Riku answered breathlessly.

None of the adults seemed to know how to react. Both Sora and Riku fell to their knees, Riku shivering, and Sora suddenly sweating bullets. He looked like he had become feverish in the span of a few seconds. Riku shuffled over to his friend with what small amount of physical form he had left to do it. He was barely an apparition in this dimension now, a trick of the sunlight and the shadows.

The prince heaved a deep breath that shuddered in newly shaking lungs. “Riku, what’s happening?” His exhale came as a cough. “Your magic…”

“Don’t worry about me.” Riku insisted. “Try to stay calm, and power through this.”

As he’d expected, the cold feeling didn’t last long. It slowly morphed into something much worse, his internal body temperature lowering to the point that everything was burning against his skin. Sora started to shiver in turn, running so hot that he was cold.

“Sora’s body will still be here after this,” Riku mumbled vaguely, not sure enough of his surroundings to definitively say that he was facing Ventus. He was slow and sleepy, and if he were to close his eyes, he figured that he would have a hard time opening them again. “So move him to somewhere comfortable for me. He’ll be okay.”

The most painful part wasn’t the hypothermia. In Riku’s opinion, it was the jagged energetic remains of his bond to Sora being ripped out of them piece for piece. He couldn’t be transported to wherever The Oracle wished to meet with him unless it was destroyed, systematically and totally. Riku already missed the constant background thumping of Sora’s heart.

“What’s left of my body will probably collapse into the shadows. And then… it’ll be erased from the universe before you wake up.” Riku finished softly.

The last of Riku’s magic was funneled to wherever it was that he was going next. Sora tried to grasp onto his wrist, but his form was already reduced to a vague rendition of nonmagical darkness that would disappear when the sun shifted its position in the sky. He wasn’t there anymore. As Sora’s light was taken, his human body stayed behind, slumping over onto the floor.

“Sora!” His parents shouted. They rushed to collect him in their arms, already running to find a medic. “Yuffie, Aerith! Somebody come with a potion _now!”_

Only Ventus was left in the hallway, blinking confusedly as he sank to where Riku had been just a moment ago.

“Not again…” He murmured, with no one around to hear it.

\---

Sora’s burning eyes snapped open to a room that he was certain he’d never seen before.

It was huge, silent, and dark, furnished in wine red and deep jewel-tone blue velvet that draped over the walls from a ceiling so high that it was lost to the shadows. He was laying on the floor in the center. In front of him, stretching onwards from floor to indominable ceiling, was a red window that cast bloody sunlight onto his weak, shivering body.

The prince grunted as he attempted to get to any kind of position of dignity. Dizziness thwarted him for the first few tries, bringing him back down to the ground like he was nothing. But Sora was determined not to let himself fade.

_Riku_ , he thought suddenly.

Riku’s magic was completely undetectable now, and Sora’s magic was spinning, whipping itself into a frenzy of heat and power that he could barely contain within his body. It took all his effort not to let light shatter the windows of this odd prison, only fatiguing him further, until all he could really do was bite back wave after wave of nausea while he tried to take inventory of the room in a little more detail. His head buzzed oddly. It was so hard— so unbelievably difficult just to keep himself from falling into the allure of unconsciousness again.

He hadn’t been without Riku’s magic since… well, probably since he was born. Their magic had been mutually regulating for as long as they’d been in the same castle, which meant that there had never really been a single moment at all in which Riku’s magic had ceased its constant curbing of his light. Oh, and he could feel the effects. Gods could he feel them.

First, he needed to find Riku. Next, he needed to figure out where he was.

His body refused to move more than a few centimeters at any given time. It only twitched the more that he tried to get up, and then he was overcome by a deep, profound sleepiness. Sora wasn’t stupid enough to fall into it quite yet.

So he waited it out.

However long he was there was totally lost to him. He couldn’t really tell, busy trying to breathe through the pressure on his chest, trying to stay awake, trying to will his fever to break for long enough to stand.

That wasn’t going to happen any time soon. The red sunlight crept from his legs to his hips as the sun (or whatever equivalent there was in this place) sank lower in what he assumed was the sky. He shivered more, feeling too hot inside and too cold outside, and altogether way, way too much like he was going to throw up.

When it’d landed on his chest and bled through his neck, finally covering the top of Sora’s head, the sun began to dim, and he assumed that the sun in this world was setting.

About half a day, maybe? Had he been able to survive for that long?

As the light disappeared, candle light began to flicker against the walls. Smoke rose from the floor, incense, he guessed, and the thick scent almost choked him.

“Where am I?” He asked no one in particular. The sky outside never blackened, only staying at a crimson that made Sora feel disoriented. Though the sun was, gone, he could tell that this place operated on a very new kind of night.

His eyes wandered to the shadows that served as the roof. If he squinted, he thought he might be able to see a chandelier almost miles away in the darkness.

Then something clicked.

And he remembered.

\---

Ventus never expected that this was how he was going to be viewing the city, tending to the prince’s bedside as his makeshift guard while his brother was… otherwise incapacitated.

Instead of going through the town and meeting new people, Ventus was confined to one of the empty royal bedrooms. It was beautiful, yes, and quite spacious, with lovely stained-glass windows and beautiful bedding that really made Sora look like the prince that he was when he was laying in its folds. The wrought iron sconces, intricately carved doors, and great beastly statues made for an intimidating picture of a castle more ancient than the islands’ one by a margin of hundreds of years. But for all its glory, most of what Ventus could do was sit and wait for the prince to wake. He _hated_ that. It wasn’t even hatred born of boredom. He was just worried to hell and back, with no real way to ease his conscious until one or both of his friends were suddenly restored to complete health.

So there he sat. One hand he always kept poised over the bucket of ice water, extra towel clutched firmly in case he needed to switch out Sora’s forehead compress, and the other was clenched into a fist as he tried to control his stormy emotions and force himself to enjoy the view out the normal windows flanking the stained ones above the bed. The outside was gorgeously colored for the kingdom’s version of autumn, trees turning burnt orange and dirty gold in the sunlight. Ventus wanted more than anything to be outside.

That just wasn’t possible as of now. He rolled up his sleeves and leaned back in his chair, sighing heavily.

Sora didn’t look like he was going to be waking up any time soon. The bright energy field that had been surrounding him for as long as Ventus could remember was barely a fraction of what it was supposed to be, almost, if not completely gone. His body wasn’t acting like how human bodies were supposed to under this kind of intense stress. It was as though he was empty, devoid of any kind of soul that could be considered as Sora’s.

Nobody Ventus had ever attempted to nurse through a fever had acted so lifeless before. Even Vanitas, who looked more like an angry wraith than a human when sick, had always retained some sense of his soul when he was in a state of delirium. Anyone could tell that it was _Vanitas_ in the room, or on the cot, tugging sluggishly at Ventus’ apron as he bustled back and forth trying to make a decent cough syrup from the castle’s medical cabinet. Whatever this was— was impossible to mistake for the prince. If Ventus hadn’t been with him for the whole time that the kings and one of his surrogate mothers were laying him down in the room, he wouldn’t believe that the person in the bed was Sora. Sora was never this sickly. He was never this still, especially when he was sick beyond all rational thought.

But his body was still breathing. And his heart was still beating. As far as Ventus could tell, he hadn’t died, no matter how closely his form resembled a corpse.

Ventus’ mind drifted to a time eons ago, when he and Aqua had been called in to help the kings for the very first time that Sora had ever gotten sick. Thinking about it almost made him laugh— it’d been seriously funny at the time to find out that the kings of their nation, the ones famous for reclaiming the territory from the claws of the heartless, had absolutely no clue how to deal with their six-year-old son getting a cold. He remembered how Riku ( _aw, so little at the time_ ) had clung to his leg, absolutely distraught over the incident. Riku was lucky enough not to get colds, being immune to all but the most devastating toxins in the universe due to the nature of his magic.

Back then, Sora was shaking and shivering, tugging at his hair, rubbing his arms, etcetera; active despite how little energy he had compared to his usual vigor. He’d smiled at Aqua and joked with Ventus for as long as he was conscious, and even made feeble attempts to duel Riku that were put to a stop effective immediately. Riku’d had to scold him just to get Sora to stay in bed.

None of that reminded him of Sora now. He didn’t move, aside from his small, shallow breathing.

Ventus looked out the window to calm himself down, getting frustrated when he realized how much the prince would’ve loved to paint this scenery. The old bag where Sora kept his paints and his journal was stashed in the corner with his other hastily-gathered items, forlorn and abandoned by its owner for the sake of much darker pastimes…

Maybe he’d make a leaf garland to hang in here the next time that Lady Gainsborough was to take over for him as a nurse. Sora wouldn’t be able to see it, but maybe the little touch of nature would help him feel a little less trapped, wherever he was.

\---

**_You are aware of the prophecy, aren’t you?_ **

_“Prophecy…?”_

**_The one that you were born to. Declared by the faery Maleficent, finalized by the fates, and kept by The Oracle._ **

_“No, not that I’m aware of.”_

**_You might want to look into it, little prince. This is a matter of life and death for you. And not to mention, that of your best friend._ **

_“Riku? You mean Riku? Riku could die!?”_

**_If you will it._ **

_“Why would I?”_

**_Don’t presume the answer without the facts._ **

\---

**_You are destined to fall in love with a monster._ **

_“You keep saying that, but I’m not so sure if I’d be able to anyway, prophecy or not.”_

**_Oh?_ **

_“I already have someone…”_

**_Riku?_ **

_“How did you—"_

**_You aren’t subtle._ **

\---

**_Think critically. Why do you think Riku wears those bandages? What could he be hiding? Why is he so proficient in darkness? Why do you think he’s careful never to be around you when his back is bothering him? Why won’t he let you worry about these things?_ **

_“I… I don’t know. Wait, but how would you know about any of that? I didn’t tell you.”_

**_Ah, so now you need to think about why he would know me. A lot of questions today._ **

\---

_“He’s a changeling?”_

_Fryja nodded._

_\---_

Sora felt like his entire world had been changed, but at the same time, like nothing had at all.

How could he have forgotten all of that? It was important— _more_ than important, it was everything. He was destined to fall in love with Riku, and…

And Riku was destined to kill him for it.

But there was no way that he would, Sora thought. He knew that Riku would never kill him of his own volition; he’d known that when Fryja first told him, and subconsciously, he was sure that he must’ve known even when his memories were gone. Sora trusted his best friend more than anyone or anything in the world. No matter what destiny had in mind for them, he knew that they both were far more than capable of doing what was right in the end. Riku would emerge triumphant.

He wanted to pry his sweaty, exhausted body off the floor and run to find Riku. Tell him that he knew. Tell him that he didn’t care. Sora loved him for who he was, not for what the universe thought he should or shouldn’t be, and he wanted to scream that he was _in love,_ that he had words for his feelings now. Sora wanted to tackle his best friend to the floor and tell him that he was in love with the sweetest, most beautiful boy he’d ever seen.

Being in love with a monster was much better than his storybooks had always made it out to be. He definitely recommended it to anyone who could manage the feat.

Alone, lost in a dimension that he was unfamiliar with, unseen and unheard by anything sentient for potential eternities in any direction, Sora laughed through his sore throat and stroked a hand through his sweaty hair.

He shivered. He was in love. It was _wonderful._

\---

“You’re ready to take over?” Lady Gainsborough asked, sweeping her skirts as she rose to standing. A soft smile donned her face. Like a graceful cloud, she seemed to float towards him on her way out the door, and Ventus blinked, already forgetting what he was doing.

She tended to have that effect around everyone she came in contact with. Ventus found that his eyes were watery all of a sudden, memories of Aqua making him very badly miss her hugs.

Oh, but he had duties to attend to right now. He couldn’t afford to miss his mom.

Ventus did his daily chores around the room. He swept the floor, replaced the old garlands with some fresh ones, cleaned candle wax from the sconces, added new candles, and then finally, he settled in front of Sora. The cold compress on his forehead had been warmed yet again.

He left briefly to fill a bucket with ice water, where he then dunked a fresh towel into it and folded it up to lay over the prince to keep his fever down.

“Man,” Ventus sighed, propping the bucket on the bedside table as he checked Sora over one more time. “You grow so damn fast. I swear I just replaced your old clothes.”

So he pulled up the chair that Lady Gainsborough had been using that evening, and got to work taking measurements. It turned out that his brief look was right. Sora had outgrown the clothes that Ventus had last made for him, so it was getting to be time for him to tailor them up a size. Good thing that they’d decided to keep him in Riku’s cloak so that they wouldn’t have to strip him down every time. The oversized garment would last him for at least another few months, give or take a handful of days.

“Almost a year, hasn’t it been?” He said, listening carefully as always for Riku in the shadows of the castle. “Don’t worry. Your fever will go down any second now.”


	21. Red at Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who just got disowned!! It's ya boi. Anyway I'm back with another chapter
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: MENTIONS OF BLOOD 
> 
> Thanks as always to everyone who reads and leaves comments or kudos! You guys are seriously the best. This one's for you guys :)

_Dear dumbass,_

_Don’t worry your pathetic little head about anything. Everyone is fucking fine. Not that you should care, since you clearly have more important shit to take care of._

_Aqua’s been spending a lot of time at the archery range recently. She trains like a demon, so you better have your ass fucking ready to be kicked as soon as you set foot in the Destiny Islands again. My uncles send their regards, for whatever that’s worth to you._

_Everyone’s still waiting for the prince to wake up. Obviously. And hey, you know, I’d like to have my dumb little subordinate back to beat the shit out of if he ever shows up again. I know it’s a bit of a sore subject for you to discuss. Whatever illness was strong enough to strike him probably left him in a pretty shit state if he survived. I wish I could tell you that I’m hopeful, but I think Riku might be gone for good. My soldiers and I keep checking for you anyway._

_I hate you, you’re horrible, I hope you die, etc._

_Kisses,_

_Van_

\---

Riku’s consciousness came back to him in intervals, like a wall of bricks slowly assembling itself piece by piece.

At first, everything was cloaked in a thick layer of inky, swirling darkness. He couldn’t see, nor could he move. So he waited it out. The feeling wasn’t very different from being noncorporeal, in which his whole body was more or less just a magical darkness soup. Uncomfortable would be a relatively accurate way to describe the experience, but it was definitely not new.

The first of his senses to return was his hearing. Riku’s ears picked up the echoey walls of what sounded like a cavern all around him, one that was dripping with moisture and full of chittering coming from faraway corners. Water splashed onto a stone floor. He was at least _fairly_ certain that it was stone, because no other type of flooring material made noises that natural, and because the feeling in his toes was slowly starting to come back. Apparently, he was barefoot. The pads of his feet dragged over a gritty, dirty surface, causing Riku to cringe.

Opening his eyes still only brought darkness while his other senses were working on resurfacing. Almost immediately, he began to feel uncomfortably stiff, and his limbs felt… unbearably weak.

_I think I feel ice on my wings,_ he thought.

Once, twice, he flapped them as hard as he could, meaning that they twitched uselessly behind him and dropped like a puppet on cut strings. The telltale crunch of ice when he moved them alerted him to the fact that they were, indeed, frozen.

How had they gotten free? He was pretty sure that he’d been wearing multiple layers of bindings when he’d fallen asleep.

Pain suddenly shot through his wrists when he gained feeling in them again. Something cold and inflexible was wrapped around each of them, basically keeping him suspended in the air. It was no wonder now why his feet were only brushing the ground instead of resting on it. Someone- or something- must’ve detained him.

Riku opened his eyes one more time. The darkness began to form into vague shapes, until he could finally see the room that he was hanging in.

In front of him were three huge windows inlaid in a wall of raw, uncut rock, with the two on the outer edges being murals of some sort that his vision was still too blurry to examine, and the one in the center being perfectly crystal-clear. The sky outside was not so black as it had been inside, more of a navy blue, but without a star in sight. A pale white light filtered in from the moon.

He turned his eyes upward to see the cuffs that were clamped around him. They were dangling on thick chains that rose into a nondescript ceiling of shadows, somewhere so high up that he couldn’t detect it.

Oh, and his whole body was covered in frost.

Riku shuddered when he looked over his form. It wasn’t very settling to see himself just barely avoiding frostbite, skin angry and irritated from the cold, though even weirder than that was the fact that he was no longer wearing his armor. Riku had apparently been changed into a black chiton while out, which exposed his excruciatingly cold legs, arms, and half his chest to the air around him like a slab of meat hanging in a freezer.

When his hair inevitably fell into his face, as it was wont to do when he was looking down, he tried to toss his head back to get it out. Then something gave him pause— was it _longer?_

That was what prompted Riku to search for a hint of his reflection in the window in front of him. It was hard to see in full clarity. However, the vague silvery-white smudge of his hair looked to cascade down his shoulders, and as he squinted a little more, he realized that he was also taller, maybe a bit wider too.

_“You’ve been asleep for a long time,”_ came a voice so deep and resonant that it shook the cavern with its force.

There was a shape reflected behind him in the mirror that almost too large to see, Riku only able to make out the appearance of two huge clawed forelegs clad in pitch-black scales. 

The space behind him was a _lot_ bigger than he’d previously thought.

Riku tried to raise his wings in warning, an instinct that he hadn’t really been aware was in him until that moment, but the voice only gave a soft hum. Of course they wouldn’t be intimidated; Riku was hardly big enough to be considered a bug in comparison to the dragon behind him, whose eyes were larger than he was tall in both directions.

He was practically swallowed by the glowing purple of his visitor’s pupils. It was like he was drowning in an ocean of ancient, powerful magic.

_“I am the one who oversees all affairs of fate, young child of prophecy…”_ He felt a surge of hot, burning breath on his back, melting the frost he’d been covered with. _“And you have been called here to me, for reasons you have yet to understand.”_

It took all he had not to respond in any way. He bit his tongue, repeating to himself that tia’an were not high enough to speak to dragons so ancient without express permission. 

Almost no time at all had passed by the time the frost reformed on Riku’s skin. His magic was going overdrive from the lack of light pushing against it, trying to freeze him over like a lake in the wintertime, and though Riku knew he couldn’t even _begin_ to do the work that Sora’s magic had been taking care of for as long as he could remember, he tried his best to fight it from the inside.

_“I’m sure you have questions,”_ The Oracle hissed, spreading her gargantuan wings out to rest around them like a tent. The undersides of her wings were dotted with glowing crystalline patches that vaguely resembled stars, cloaking him in artificial night. _“You may ask them. I provide one answer per question, but will repeat the answer as many times as you need. Take care not to get overzealous. If you ask one question too many, you will be swiftly and immediately dealt with.”_

Riku’s throat felt dry, so he swallowed. It didn’t really feel better.

He had to think for a few minutes about how to respond. Questions stormed his mind in the fashion of a riot, every thought shouting and clambering for attention, breaking down doors and windows on its way to set fire to his mind. Riku had to take a deep breath just to pick the first one worth asking. Then he had to take even longer, trying to form his words into Dragontongue.

Unlike the broadcasted thoughts that most lower-ranking dragons spoke with, or the eerie whispers of his grandfather, The Oracle spoke in low, rumbling growls that he was only able to interpret through his dragon senses. He wasn’t incredibly practiced in such a dialect.

_Okay… click twice to indicate reverence. Spread wings to show status. Long growl for a sentence. Magic for subject matter. Snap fangs to end a thought inquisitively._

The dragon behind him was patient. She didn’t ask him to hurry, and she said nothing as he weakly attempted to form a question, thwarted at first by his crackly and hoarse vocal cords and then after by his wings refreezing in place. Hot breath melted the ice buildup before he could get too frustrated with it, and he clicked a few times in thanks.

_“How long have I been asleep?”_ he managed to struggle out.

_“Long enough.”_

Riku’s wrists burned from the strain of holding him up. He was already feeling tired.

If questions like that were going to be met with vague answers, then Riku would have to be more careful about what he asked. There were a few things prominent in his head; firstly, what Maleficent had mentioned to him the last time he’d seen her in person. The Oracle had information on her. Riku needed to know it.

_“The sorceress Maleficent,”_ He announced, with the whistle that dragons used to speak of the fae. _“What exactly does her prophecy say about me?”_

Simmering purple shone from her eyes and on her scales as she brought her head down to Riku’s approximate level. Her teeth were so very big, he thought, right before the next words were shouted in Maleficent’s voice. Riku flinched, skin crawling at the grating bursts of poetic English.

_“A monster come, a monster be_

_A monster too becometh he_

_To kill the one he holds so dear_

_The hatred will become his fear.”_

She let the words echo off into the caverns around them. In the distance somewhere, Riku heard a chorus of animals he didn’t recognize starting to howl, as if to let the dragon know that her prophecy was heard by everyone whose ears she’d wanted it to reach.

To avoid speaking out, he lowered his head down, ignoring the way that the movement strained the muscles in his upper back.

_“Does this mean that I am…”_

There was no real word for monster in Dragontongue. He struggled to think of a way to communicate what he needed, eventually settling on the shameful aversion of eyes that meant ‘dangerous’.

She breathed a great huff of violet flames. _“Hatred is a thing born of fear, and fear is what turns those who are lost into those who hurt. Be afraid of your future to kill what it may become. Be not afraid of love, or risk losing what you hold close. Be afraid of hatred,”_ the dragon continued with a flourish, _“And you may yet be a changeling of great pride.”_

Riku nodded. He shook off the already-returning ice crystals on his wings in order to fold them inward, thanking his superior for her compliment.

The glass of the moonlit window seemed almost to ripple as he watched it. When he stopped straining to see the dragon’s reflection, his eyes drifted on to the large, serene image of the celestial body drifting silently in space. It didn’t quite look like the moon that he knew. Too big, too full, and distinctly lacking in magic— if this was the same moon that he had gone to sleep to, then the world may have changed more than he feared.

His arms hurt so badly. He ignored them.

_“What is my life’s purpose?”_ Riku breathed solemnly, voice mingling with the creatures in the darkness of the caves beyond. Fangs snapped sharply to accentuate it. _Answer,_ the sound demanded, and with a softer click of his tongue, he added _please._

The Oracle huffed softly. Her maw was right behind him, so large and imposing that he didn’t even need to be able to turn to tell that it was there. Every puff of her breath caused his chains to sway gently, every burst of fire rattling them like bones.

_“Life means many things to different people. To the woman who birthed you, your purpose is to fulfil her needs. To the woman who you call mother, your purpose is to be loved.”_

He was willing to accept that as an answer, but it appeared as though The Oracle was not done speaking.

_“To the universe, your life was originally a problem that needed solving. It gave you the pieces you needed to solve yourself, and you, young changeling, are now a force of great balance. One that Maleficent could never have foreseen.”_ She gave a throaty grunt, prodding his back with a gentleness that her size should not have allowed for. _“Yes… your purpose is and always was what you want it to be.”_

What he wanted it to be?

Riku felt his eyes almost start to water, so he closed them, willing it not to develop into anything resembling actual tears.

_“What do you want?”_ she asked, neither hostile nor particularly encouraging.

_“To be strong…”_ Riku answered carefully. _“To protect the things that matter.”_

Her great mouth opened, giant teeth barely an inch away from crushing his head, before she simply closed her mouth again and licked her lips with a sly swipe of her tongue.

_“What matters to you?”_ The dragon countered.

_“My family.”_

_“Maleficent?”_ she whistled.

His eyes widened. “No!” he shouted in English, instantly covering his head with his wings as the sound repeated and warped, bouncing from wall to wall in the infinite caves. Riku’s cheeks burned with embarrassment from the slipup.

It was only by some miracle that The Oracle seemed to find this entertaining rather than insulting. She laughed plumes of purple fire at him, only neglecting to roast him alive due to the thin protection that his bloodline offered.

_“Then who, I wonder, is it that you want to protect?”_

\---

_Dear Vanitas,_

_Tell Aqua that I’ve been missing her a lot lately. The sky here is so pretty in fall, and the color reminds me of her hair. I’m sure that Sora would say hi as well if he could._

_He’s been acting odd lately. I think that some of his magic- not all of it, mind you, but some- might have found its way back into his body. He mumbles sometimes when I go to get him a new forehead compress. Though I can’t tell what he’s saying, I think that this can only be a good sign. Lady Gainsborough swore up and down that she saw him move his hand late at night. Just a couple centimeters to the left. Still, it’s something._

_I keep having these dreams that he’s surrounded by dragons in the castle’s astronomy room. They’re asking him to make a choice. He says he’s already made it, but for some reason, they won’t let him go. And he still has that fever…_

_I don’t know. It’s just a dream, I guess._

_And about Riku, he isn’t dead. I don’t care what you think about it. People keep saying that they hear a voice in the hallways that’s calling my name. Sometimes for Aqua or Sora too— even you. It has to be him. He’s just lost somewhere out in the darkness._

_Yours,_

_Ven_

\---

Sora was getting really tired of being in this room.

He honestly had no clue how long he’d been in here. Sometimes it felt like it’d only been a few hours, or at most a few days, and sometimes he felt like he’d never experienced a life outside of this place at all. The red sunlight that he’d come to associate with morning was back on his face as it usually was, shining from the opposite window that he was facing. It made it nearly impossible to sleep.

Not that there was much else to do in here. Long since having gotten used to the dizziness and nausea of a constant high fever, Sora wouldn’t really have had too many reservations about trying to take a walk or even attempting to read one of the books in the room, but he’d discovered pretty early on during his stay in here that he wouldn’t be able to get that far. His arms and legs were bound by harshly restrictive chains that he'd somehow _(amazingly)_ neglected to notice during his first few barely-conscious nights on the floor of this damn room. All he could really do was stare at the nonexistent ceiling and pray his sickness wouldn’t be too bad today.

A bolt of pain shot from his head all the way to his toes, and he squirmed uncomfortably, causing the iron to clang on the floor like thunder.

Okay. _Maybe_ the fever was still a problem.

He shivered, wishing desperately that he could’ve kept the warm, fluffy folds of Riku’s cloak on when he was taken to this place. The cream-colored chiton that he’d been stuffed into by some unknown force provided very little protection from the elements, of which there really weren’t many— just cold, unforgiving air against his highly temperature-sensitive skin.

The cold reminded him a little bit of Riku, which was a thought he entertained more often than he didn’t, if only for lack of anything else to take his mind off of his persistent agony.

Sora let his head drop backwards as he tightly shut his eyes. Keeping them open for more than a few minutes a time gave him migraines, which he’d figured out the hard way a long time ago.

It wasn’t until night fell again some undeterminable amount of time later that the dragons appeared around him. Incense lit from every corner of the room again, the smoke harsh on Sora’s aching lungs, and he heard their rough-sounding chatter filling the space until he felt trapped.

The younger elemental dragons (a very relative term, considering their ancient nature) spoke to each other in glances back and forth that Sora could not understand. Their messages weren’t directed at him, so he had no way of knowing what they were talking about. While he could hear the growling of the elder four out loud, the language was no more intelligible to him. They seemed to be upholding a conversation through snarling and clicking alone. He wished he could speak like they did, if only so they would understand what he’d been trying to tell them.

“I gave my answer,” Sora rasped. “And I can’t just let Riku die. I’ll- I’ll do whatever I have to do in order to restore the balance that you want. But really, I don’t mind him killing me if it can’t be helped…”

One of the larger ones met him in an intense stare when he chanced opening his eyes. Sora tried his best to keep up his resolve, but it was hard to look intimidating to a dragon that was eons older than him and infinitely more powerful.

Suddenly, the familiar sensation of his mind being dulled overcame him, as though he was on the verge of falling asleep. He could hear things. He couldn’t see. His mouth was moving and his chest was vibrating with sound, so Sora knew that they were making him say something, _apparently_ their form of communication, he’d found. It was weird and invasive and Sora did not like it very much. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do anything while trapped in his own headspace.

Being released felt like a slap to the face every time, stinging nerves and pounding headache surfacing out of the blurry ocean just in time to make him wish that he wasn’t chained to the floor. The cuffs bruised his arms and legs as he tried his best to pull his body into the fetal position, shivering, straining to break them while knowing that he’d never be able to do it. His light attacked the restrictions furiously so he could at least move into a position that wasn’t so bad for his nausea. Like every other time, it didn’t work.

The dragons conversed into the night and long past when even Riku would be heading to bed. As the sun rose redder than wine come morning, their forms disappeared like ghosts.

\---

_“The prince has made his decision,”_ The Oracle informed him. _“He wants to journey with you.”_

Riku looked up from where he’d been staring at the floor. He blinked slowly, looked back to the ground, then found the dragon’s eyes in the window again. Before he could spend the next few minutes struggling to speak without proper dragon body language, a warm breath blew gently over his wings just enough to thaw them. He clicked his thanks and fluttered each to show acknowledgement of the previously stated words.

Speaking his opinion was risky, but he didn’t know of any other way to fix this mess he’d created. Sora somehow didn’t see the danger- and how typical of him, to be so kind to a creature that didn’t deserve it- which left the job of protection up to Riku. He’d pull his final strings before there was ever a chance that the prince would be hurt.

_“I can’t go with him.”_

The Oracle seemed like she’d expected this response, nonetheless disappointed in it if he was reading her wings correctly. She puffed out a great cloud of smoke that caused him to rock forward and backward on his chains for a few seconds before he could use his feet to drag him back to center.

Rich mauve squinted back at him in the window’s reflection once he searched her out again. _“Why not? There is nothing preventing you from doing as such.”_

Except that he wouldn’t put Sora’s safety in jeopardy like that. He wouldn’t just as much as he _couldn’t,_ and so he cast his eyes away, remaining silent. The Oracle probably already knew his reasoning anyway. There were scarcely few things in this universe that The Oracle didn’t know.

She knew of a great many things. Enough that telling Riku just a tiny fraction of it had left him speechless for the better part of a week, in which he hung in silence and attempted to process everything that he’d learned.

Remembering the tales of darkness and light and a universe created by spinning pools of energy colliding into each other, Riku had simply… reflected. He’d let the information pass through him and in him where it would travel as much as it pleased. There was water in his blood and earth in his bones, air in his lungs that stoked fires in his heart, and _all of that,_ the dragon had told him, was nothing compared to the darkness that was a friend to it all. It was his greatest strength. His most poignant weakness. She’d pointed out his wings, fangs, claws, and told him that they were the proud marks of a cunning young dragon.

There was a reason why the word “monster” did not appear in the dragons’ lexicon: they didn’t believe in the concepts of good and evil. And Riku wondered, why?

_“I understand what you’ve told me, but I…”_ Riku gulped down his words. He knew it wouldn’t be received very well. _“I can’t run the risk of hurting him, even if you’re right that my prophecy can be overcome. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I ended my best friend’s life.”_

The apologetic whine that he’d tagged his last sentence onto dissipated into the caverns, sounding like a lonely, scared wolf.

She was unamused.

_“So, you refuse the help of your clan on the weak guise that you do not trust our judgement. Is this true?”_

Sensing a mistake, he tucked his wings submissively to his back. _“I wouldn’t phrase it so harshly.”_

Dragons didn’t really do the whole song and dance of weaving around an obvious sentiment; that was more of a trait Riku’d inherited from his faerie side, although he supposed that it was likely a bigger attribute to being raised in human society. Years of habitually dodging around telling the kings where Sora’d been was suddenly biting him back, he realized as he looked into The Oracle’s fiery pupils. She did not appreciate being critiqued on word presentation. Riku cursed in his head.

_“I just can’t trust in myself when the fates are such powerful entities,”_ He insisted. _“They’re far more powerful than me. What if they win? What will I do then?”_

The two snapped back and forth at each other for a moment. The lack of magic going between them meant that their growls had no meaning other than plain animosity, the two daring the other to continue pushing their point.

_“I was patient in explaining to you the restraints of destiny. You still do not understand.”_

She lifted her giant head off the floor, causing the rocky surface beneath to rumble from the force of her movement. As she stretched to the ceiling in the shadows past what Riku could see, he heard a clanging noise, followed soon by a rush of vibration that shook Riku’s chains like a tambourine.

_“These chains are the essence of destiny. They bind you, they hurt you… and yes, they are strong, but they are also fallible in their own way.”_

Riku grit his teeth. _“I can’t break them.”_

_“You didn’t try.”_

Her claws wrapped around one chain, pulling at it as though she was going to break it, and he grunted as the movement strained his arm, which was tugged much higher up than it should be. A snap sounded from his wrist. He gasped, pain striking through his hand and arm in a manner that made his stomach immediately clench.

Crackling went up and down the chain attached to his aching wrist as it was frozen over by The Oracle’s magic. She took her claw right above it and flicked once, causing the whole thing to fall to the ground in a great, ear-splitting crash.

When the dust from the disturbed stone floor finally cleared, Riku’s awkwardly bent, throbbing hand was resting by his side, the chain having exploded into magic that dissolved into the air upon being broken.

The Oracle didn’t appear to be remorseful. _“You forget that chains are man-made.”_

With only one arm holding him up to the ceiling now, Riku was able to maneuver his body so that he was facing the dragon he spoke to without the necessity of a reflection. She was even bigger than he had previously imagined.

_“The things that hold you back are what, exactly? Your dragon-like body? Your dream-eater magic? Or is the danger only a fabrication of the people who wish to use you?”_ she asked, punctuating each point with a subtle nudging of her snout a little closer to where Riku hung. _“I believe that you, young fledgling, are the one being your own judge, jury, and executioner. It is you who must admit yourself to the open arms of others.”_

Power began to gather around her, Riku bursting into purple flames in the span of a second. He didn’t burn in the heat, but he felt the incredible weight of her magic, so potent that he choked on the sudden overflow of energy in his body.

_“You must learn to rely on others’ kindness if you are ever to break the chains that you’ve constructed for yourself.”_

The pain in his body became unbearable, and he cried out, wanting to clutch at his eyes but being unable to move his wrist enough to do so. Blood welled up in his eye sockets and spilled down his cheeks, morbid tears that he couldn’t control.

Riku heaved and panted as the blood kept coming. It _hurt,_ his brain spit out desperately, it hurt so _much-_

_“And this new power, an ancient heirloom of the dragons, will teach you how. Bear proudly the mark of the bravehearted.”_

The Oracle brought her head back down on level with him, lying so that her eye was directly in front of where Riku was hanging, the surface functioning as a giant, impersonal mirror of deep purple. Not only did Riku see his older, infinitely more worn face up close for the first time since waking, Riku was able to see as her magic changed him.

He quivered as his eyes morphed from bright teal to a sickening shade of bloody red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the heavy italics everybody, I am not a writer of high class as you can tell


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